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ANALOGY 0F"P:ELIGI0N, 
Natural ant( 2*cbcalctr, . . ., ,- - 

TO THE 

CONSTITUTION AND COURSE OF NATURE : 



CONSISTING OF 

A Criticism of Butler's Treatise on the Subject, 

T0G£TH2a WITH 

A VIEW OF THE CONNEXION OF THE ARGUMENTS 

OF THE A>'ALOGY WITH THE OTHER 3IAI!f 

BRANCHES OF THE EVIDENCES OF 

CHRISTIANITY NOT NOTICED 

IN butler's WORK, 



BY DANIEL WILSON, D. D. 

BISHOP OF CALCUTTA. 



BOSTON: 
JAMES LORING, 132 WASHINGTON STREET. 

1834. 






^ CillH,orU949l»«o,B«|««,e^.TJia»k8. 

L ANALOGY OF RELIGION, 

I^ ?<atut:al antr 2^ebealetJ* 



SKETCH OF THE DESIGN OF BISHOP BUTLER's 
ANALOGY. 

Bishop Butler is one of those creative 
geniuses, who give a character to their times. 
His great work, ' The Analogy of Religion,' 
has fixed the admiration of all competent 
judges for nearly a century, and will continue 
to be studied so long as the language in which 
he wrote endures. The mind of a master 
pervades it. The author chose a theme in- 
finitely important, and he has treated it with 
a skill, a force, a novelty and talent, which 
have left little for others to do after him. He 
opened the mine and exhausted it himself. 
A discretion which never oversteps the line 
of prudence, is in him united with a penetra- 
2 



6 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

tion which nothing can escape. There is in 
his writings a vastness of idea, a reach and 
generalization of reasoning, a native simpli- 
city and grandeur of thought, which com- 
mand and fill the mind. At the same time, 
his illustrations are so striking and familiar as 
to instruct as well as persuade. Nothing is 
violent, nothing far-fetched, nothing pushed 
beyond its fair limits, nothing fanciful or 
weak : a masculine power of argument runs 
through the whole. All bespeaks that repose 
of mind, that tranquility which springs from a 
superior understanding, and an intimate ac- 
quaintance with every part of his subject. 
He grasps firmly his topic, and insensibly 
communicates to his reader the calmness and 
conviction which he possesses himself. He 
embraces with equal ease the greatest and 
the smallest points connected with his argu- 
ment. He often throws out as he goes along, 
some general principle which seems to cost 
him no labour, and yet which opens a whole 
field of contemplation before the view of the 
reader. 

Butler was a philosopher in the true sense 
of the term. He searches for wisdom wher- 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 



ever he can discern Its traces. He puts forth 
the keenest sagacity in his pursuit of his great 
object, and never turns aside till he reaches, 
and seizes it. Patient, silent, unobtrusive 
investigation was his forte. His powers of 
invention were as fruitful as his judgment was 
sound. Probably no book in the compass of 
theology is so full of the seeds of things, to 
use the expression of a kindred genius, (Lord 
Bacon) as the ' Analogy.' 

He was a man raised up for the age in 
which he lived. The wits and infidels of the 
reign of our Second Charles, (Butler was 
born in the year 1692,) had deluged the land 
with the most unfair, and yet plausible writ- 
ings against Christianity. A certain fearless- 
ness as to religion seemed to prevail. There 
was a general decay of piety and zeal. Many 
persons treated Christianity as if it were an 
agreed point amongst all people of discern-^ 
ment, that it had been found out to be fict> 
tious. The method taken by these enemies 
of Christianity, was to magnify and urge ab- 
jections more or less plausible, against par- 
ticular doctrines or precepts, which were 
represented as forming a part of it j and 



8 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

which, to a thoughtless mind, were easfljr 
made to appear extravagant, incredible, and 
irrational. They professed to admit the 
Being and Attributes of the Almighty ; but 
they maintained that human reason was suffi- 
cient for the discovery and establishment of 
this fundamental truth, as well as for the de- 
velopment of those moral precepts, by which 
the conduct of life should be regulated ; ancj 
they boldly asserted, that so many objections 
and difficulties might be urged against Chris- 
tianity, as to exclude it from being admitted 
as Divine, by any thoughtful and enlightened 
person. 

These assertions Butler undertook to re- 
fute. He was a man formed for such a task. 
He knew thoroughly what he was about. He 
had a mind to weigh objections, and to trace, 
detect, and silence cavils. Accordingly, he 
came forward in all the self-possession, and 
dignity, and meekness of truth, to meet the 
mfidel on his own ground. He takes the 
admission of the unbeliever, that God is the 
Creator and Ruler of the natural world, as a 
principle conceded. From this point he sets 
forward, and pursues a course of argument 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 9 

SO cautious, so solid, so forcible ; and yet so 
diversified, so original, so convincing; as to 
carry along with him, almost insensibly, those 
who have once put themselves under his 
guidance. His insight into the constitution 
and course of nature is almost intuitive ; and 
the application of his knowledge is so sur- 
prisingly skilful and forcible, as to silence or 
to satisfy every fair antagonist. He traces 
out every objection with a deliberation which 
nothing can disturb ; and shows the fallacies 
from whence they spring, with a precision 
and acuteness which overwhelm and charm 
the reader. 

Accordingly, students of all descriptions 
have long united in the praise of Butler. He 
is amongst the few classic authors of the first 
rank in modern literature. He takes his 
place with Bacon, and Pascal, and Newton, 
those mighty geniuses who opened new sour- 
ces of information on the most important sub- 
jects, and commanded the love and gratitude 
of mankind. If his powers were not fully 
equal to those of these most extraordinary 
men, they were only second to them. He 
was in his own line, nearly what they were 
2^ 



10 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

in the inventions of science, and the adapta- 
tion of mathematics to philosophy founded 
on experiment. He was of like powers of 
mind, of similar calm and penetrating sagaci- 
ty, of the same patience and perseverance in 
pursuit, of kindred acuteness and precision 
in argument, of like force and power in his 
conclusions. His objects were as great, his 
mind as simple, his perception of truth as 
distinct, his comprehension of intellect nearly 
as vast, his aim as elevated, his success as 
surprising. 

The ' Analogy' was the work of Butler's 
life. As early as the year 1713, when he 
was a student of Divinity at Tewkesbury, 
and only twenty-one years of age, his powers 
of mind were already directed to this and 
kindred subjects. The sagacity and depth 
of thought displayed in his letters to Dr. S. 
Clarke, in that year, attracted, though sent 
anonymously, the Doctor's particular notice, 
and brought on a friendly but most acute dis- 
cussion, which has been annexed to all the 
subsequent editions of Dr. Clarke's ^ Demon- 
stration of the Being and Attributes of God.^ 
From the year 1718, when he was appointed 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. H 

preacher at the Roll's Chapel, to the year 
17265 when he published his Fifteen Ser- 
mons, the subject of the ' Analogy' was ap- 
parently uppermost in his mind. This vol- 
ume contained in fact the germ of his great 
work. At length, in the year 1736, when 
he had attained the age of 45, the ' Analogy' 
appeared, as the result of his maturest reflec- 
tions during a series of theological studies of 
between twenty and thirty years. In all his 
subsequent writings, after his elevation to the 
Episcopal Bench in 1738, till his death in 
1752, the like train of thought is observable ; 
and even in the last of them, his charge to 
the clergy of the diocese of Durham in 1751, 
the one commanding subject which had oc- 
cupied his life is still pursued. Thus a long 
course of forty years was devoted by this 
surprising man, with a depth of knowledge 
and a strength of mind which were exactly 
suited to so great a theme, to the illustration 
of the truth of Christianity from the course 
and order of God's natural providence. 

The consequence is, nothing ha^ ever been 
advanced against his main argument. The 



12 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

infidel has never ventured a reply.* It has 
long been in every one's hands ; and is one 
of the few works which go into the elements 
of every well-directed plan of education. 

It has, however, been generally admitted, 
that his argument, clear and convincing as it 
is to a prepared mind, is not obvious in all 
its parts to the young reader, whose experi- 
ence of life being small, and his habits of 
reflection feeble, has not always the furniture 
necessary for comprehending at first the 
thoughts and conclusions of such a mind. 

* An attempt was made, fifteen years after his death, 
to fix the charge of superstition on Bishop Butler. It 
was even insinuated that he died in the communion of 
the Church of Rome. These calumnies had no foun- 
dation. They were refuted at the time by his friend 
Archbishop Seeker, to the satisfaction of every one. 
And when the accusation and the reply to it were re- 
corded in Butler's life in the Biographia Britannica, 
by Dr. Kippis, Bishop Halifax took occasion to sift the 
matter again to the bottom, and published the result in 
his edition of the ' Analogy,' in 1787. This set the 
question completely at rest. The decided opposition 
of Bishop Butler's sentiments to the errors and corrup- 
tion of the Church of Rome, is indeed apparent in all 
his writings ) and it is now not worth while, in fact it 
would be obviously unjust, to enter into the details of 
so wretched a misrepresentation. This subject is very 
properly omitted altogether in the Oxford University 
edition of 1807 ; nor would it have been alluded to 
here, if the charge against Bishop Butler as well as its 
answer, had not been revived since, in an article of a 
widely circulated work, La Biographic Universelle. 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 13 

The difficulty is increased by a style not al- 
ways clear and accurate> His language, in- 
deed, interests and delights those who are 
accustomed to his manner, and seems to have 
flowed from him without art or contrivance. 
The familiar expressions and illustrations 
which continually occur, are not without their 
charm. Even the colloquial turn of some of 
the phrases sits well upon the author. Still, 
as a whole, the style is too close, too negli- 
gent, too obscure to be suitable for the young. 
It is marked with that carelessness into which 
many writers of the first-rate talents fall, when 
intent only on their great theme, they pour 
out their thoughts in the words which first 
present themselves. More than one attempt 
has therefore been made to aid the inexpe- 
rienced reader, by short analyses of Butler's 
argument. That prefixed by Bishop Hali- 
fax to his edition of 1787, is the most valua- 
ble, as it is the best known. In the follow- 
ing Essay a more detailed review, or sum- 
mary, of the work, is attempted, with a similar 
design : with what success must be left to 
the judgment of the public. If it aids in 
forming some idea of the general reasoning 



14 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

of the Work, it will accomplish all that was 
designed. It cannot, indeed ; for nothing 
can give a just impression of Butler, but But- 
ler himself. It is not intended to supersede 
the mighty master, whom it only introduces. 
But besides the obscurity which is found 
in ' The Analogy' by the youthful student, it 
has been also remarked, that Bishop Butler's 
statements of Christianity itself, from what- 
ever cause, are somewhat restricted. The 
impression is cold. The consolation and life 
of it are absent. Whether this arises from 
the nature of his argument, and the class of 
opponents whom he addressed, or from the 
turn of the Bishop's mind to retired and con- 
templative, rather than vivid and popular, 
descriptions of truth ; or from something of 
the languor so generally complained of in the 
Divinity of the era when he wrote, it is not 
easy to say. Certain it is that there seenis 
some ground for the complaint. The full 
and exuberant grace and consolation of Chris- 
tianity in its particular doctrines, and its ap- 
plication to the heart and life, were not, in- 
deed, the topics of our great author ; but the 
references which frequently occur to the 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 15 

scheme and end of revelation, would un- 
doubtedly have admitted of some observa- 
tions on these important points, which may 
now be thought wanting. Will we be for- 
given, if we suggest, in the proper place, 
what we intend by this remark more at 
length ? The eminent station which Butler 
holds, makes it^ natural that we should offer 
without fear, after an interval of nearly a cen- 
tury, such reflections as honestly occur to us. 
A Classic may always be commented upon. 

In the following pages, therefore, it will 
be our design — 

I. To state the general argument which 
Bishop Butler pursues in the Analogy ; and 
to review the principal steps of his reasoning. 

II. To point out the connexion of the 
argument of the Analogy, with the other 
main branches of the Evidences of Christiani- 
ty ; to notice its use and importance ; and 
to offer some remarks on Butler's particular 
view of Christianity itself, and on the adapta- 
tion of his argument to practical religion in 
all its extent. Each of these divisions will 
necessarily draw us into some length. 



16 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

We begin with a statement of the 

GENERAL ARGUMENT OF THE ANALOGY. 

The chief design of this great work is to 
answer objections raised against Reh'gion, 
Natural and Revealed, and to confirm the 
proof of it, by considering the analogy or 
likeness which that system of religion bears 
to the constitution and course of the world as 



ruled by God's ordinary Providence. It com- 
pares the known state and progress of things 
in the natural world, with what religion teach- 
es as to the moral world ; the acknowledged 
dispensations of Providence, with the appoint- 
ments of religion ; that government of God 
which we actually find ourselves under here, 
with that government of God which religion 
binds us to believe and expect hereafter. 
And it shows that these two schemes are in 
many, very many respects alike, that they 
are both vast and incomprehensible as to their 
whole compass and extent, but that still they 
may both be traced up to the same general 
laws, and resolved into the same principles 
of divine conduct. It takes for granted that 
there is an Intelligent Governor of the world, 
a supreme and perfect Author of nature ; and 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 17 

then argues from that part of his works and 
dispensations which is known and acknowl- 
edged, to that part which is denied or object- 
ed to ; from the world of nature to the world of 
revelation ; from the confessed order of Pro- 
vidence to the disputed appointments of Grace ; 
from creation to Christianity. Its proper de- 
sign is not to prove the truth of natural and 
revealed religion by their direct evidences of 
miracles and prophecies. The author of the 
Analogy takes other ground. He supposes 
all these usual proofs to remain, and remain 
in all their force ; and he attempts to confirm 
them in the minds of considerate men, who 
may have been staggered by objections and 
difficulties, by taking up the objector on his 
own admission of the supreme rule of the 
Almighty in the world, and showing him that 
his objections have no real weight, because 
they might be raised against the works of 
God in his ordinary and confessed govern- 
ment of the kingdom of nature, just as plausi- 
bly as against the government of the same 
God in the kingdom of religion. This is his 
line of argument. He reasons from that part 
of the divine proceedings which comes under 
3 



18 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

our view in the daily business of life, to that 
larger and more comprehensive part of these 
proceedings which is beyond our view, and 
which religion reveals. Thus he answers 
and silences objections. God's ordering of 
the affairs of men by his Providence is a fact 
known and admitted, and present before our 
ejes. Now if it can be shown that God's 
ordering the conduct of men by the laws and 
motives of religion is analogous to this, and 
liable to no more nor other objections, then 
we have a probable argument, in the first in- 
stance, and independently of its direct evi- 
dences, in favour of the truth of Christianity. 
Thus objections are satisfactorily silenced, 
if not removed. The acknowledgment of a 
perfect Creator and Ruler of the Universe, 
connected with the fact that he does such 
and such things, acts by such and such gen- 
eral laws, brings about such and such effects, 
attaches such and such consequences to men's 
actions, deals with them in such and such a 
manner in the daily and hourly appointments 
of his Providence, gives us data to proceed 
upon in answering what is objected against 
the supposed rule of the same God in religion. 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 19 

If men, indeed, will indulge in vain and 
idle speculations, and form imaginary models 
of an universe, and lay down plans for ruling 
the world in a way which they suppose bet- 
ter than it is at present, there can be no ar- 
guing with them. They profess themselves 
to be wiser than God. They take up with 
airy notions which have no foundation in facts. 
This is to deny the natural government of 
God, which was conceded by the hypothesis. 
But if men will leave these presumptuous 
conjectures, and come to facts — to the con- 
stitution of nature, as it is actually made 
known to us by experience, and as confess- 
edly framed by an all-wise and gracious 
Governor, they will find a surprising analogy 
between Nature and Religion ; they will find 
the probability weigh down strongly on the 
side of the truth of Christianity, Bven prior to 
its direct proofs and evidences ; they will 
find, that the system of Christianity is loaded 
with no greater difficulties than the system of 
nature is, and that it is no safer to spurn at 
the scheme of religion, than to ridicule the 
constitution of the same infinitely glorious 
God, in his temporal government of mankind. 



20 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

In short, our author shows, that the dispen- 
sations of Providence, which we are under 
now, as inhabitants of this lower world, and 
as having a momentary interest to secure in 
it, are analagous to, and, in fact, of a piece 
with, that further dispensation which relates 
to us as designed for another world, in which 
we have an eternal interest. The natural 
and moral world are thus seen to be intimate- 
ly connected together, and to be parts of one 
stupendous whole, where our ignorance be- 
trays us the instant we dare to speculate and 
imagine things of ourselves, but where com- 
mon sense and common prudence lead us on 
securely, if we are modest, and practical, 
and sincere. And the chief objections which 
are urged against religion, are thus shown to 
be false and frivolous 5 because they might 
have been equally urged before experience 
had taught us, against the course and consti- 
tution of nature, which are admitted on all 
hands to have come from the ever-blessed 
God. If, therefore, they are inconclusive 
when raised against the external and obvious, 
and, as it were, tangible order of things 
around us, much more are they inconclusive, 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 21 

when raised against the moral, and invisible, 
and mysterious order of things which Chris- 
tianity reveals. 

It is true, this whole argument from analo- 
gy is only a probable one. It does not 
amount to demonstration. But then, it is a 
probable argument of the highest kind, and 
far stronger than those by which men are 
every day guided in their most important 
concerns. There are very few things indeed 
for which we have, or can have, demonstra- 
tive evidence. For such feeble creatures as 
we are, prohahility is the guide of life. Every 
thing turns upon it. Even a single, slight, 
presumption may not be without its weight ; 
but presumptions, however slight in them- 
selves, if frequently repeated, often amount 
to a moral certainty. Thus, if we acciden- 
tally observe for one day the ebb and flow of 
the tide, the observation affords only some 
sort of presumption, and that perhaps the 
lowest imaginable, that the same may happen 
again to-morrow ; but the observation of this 
event for so many days, and months, and 
ages together, as it has been observed by 
men in all places and countries, gives us a 
3* 



22 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

full assurance that it will happen to-morrow. 
No man in his senses thinks otherwise. Thus, 
also, no one doubts but that the sun will rise 
to-morrow, and will be seen, if seen at all, 
in the figure of a circle, and not in that of a 
square. So again, we conclude that there is 
no kind of presumption that there w^ill not be 
frost in England any given day in January 
next ; that it is probable that there will on 
some day of that month, and that there is 
almost a moral certainty of it in some part or 
other of the winter. In like manner, when 
we observe in human affairs generally, that 
any thing does regularly come to pass, we 
infer that other things which are like to it, or 
have analogy with it, will also come to pass. 
Human concerns are all carried on by this 
natural process of reasoning. And yet we 
have no demonstrative evidence in any such 
cases. Thus we believe that a child, if it 
lives twenty years, will grow up to the strength 
and stature of a man ; that food will con- 
tribute to the preservation of its life ; and the 
want of food for a certain number of days be 
its certain destruction. It is thus men go on 
jcontinually. They judge and act by what is 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 23 

probable, and never dream of asking for fur- 
ther evidence. The rule of their hopes and 
fears, of their calculations of success in their 
pursuits, of their expectations how others will 
act in such circumstances, and of their judg- 
ment that such actions proceed from such 
principles, all these rest on the argument 
from analogy, that is, on their having observ- 
ed before the like things with respect to them- 
selves or others. Especially, if any great 
scheme of things is laid before men claiming 
to be the plan of such and such a person, and 
demanding certain efforts and duties, they 
compare this scheme with the acknowledged 
productions of that person, and judge by 
analogy whether it is his or not. They 
compare the part of this person's designs 
which is known and familiar to them, with 
the new scheme at present unknown, in order 
to form a probable opinion. If, on considera- 
tion, they can trace the same mind in both 
plans, the same ends, the same sort of means, 
the same general laws, the same benevolence 
and wisdom, the same vastness of compre- 
hension, the same apparent pferplexity work- 
ing the same good results, the same moral 



24 WILSON'S^ ANALOGY. 

characteristics and features, and, above all, a 
dependence and connexion between the two ; 
they conclude that they both proceed from 
the same author. And if objections should 
be raised against the new and unknown 
scheme, which, on calm inquiry, seem to he 
equally against the scheme already known 
and acknowledged to come from the same 
hand, these objections have no weight with 
them, that is, they are answered by the analo- 
gy or likeness which the one constitution and 
scheme bears to the other. Persons who 
doubt of the force of a probable argument in 
religion, should consider in this way what evi- 
dence that is upon which they act every day 
with regard to their temporal interests. They 
act in the daily course of life upon evidence 
much lower than what is called probable. 
In questions of the greatest consequence, a 
reasonable man marks the lowest probabili- 
ties, such as amount to no more than show- 
ing that one side of a question is as supposa- 
ble and credible as the other. And any one 
would be thought mad who did not do so, in 
many cases. Men not only guard against 
what they fully believe will happen, but also 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 25 

against what they think it possible may happen ; 
they often engage in pursuits when the pro- 
bability is greatly against success ; they make 
such provision for themselves as it is suppos- 
able that they may have occasion for, though 
the plain acknowledged probability is, that 
they never will have such occasion. 

Indeed it is a real imperfection in the 
moral character, not to be influenced in prac- 
tice by any degree of evidence, even the 
lowest, when it is discovered. Men are un- 
der a formal and absolute obligation to act in 
practical matters on the side of the least pre- 
ponderating probability. As when we weigh 
two things in a pair of true scales, the small- 
est inclination of the beam enables us to see 
which is the heavier, and binds us to act on 
the fact that it is so : so, in matters of prac- 
tice, the smallest degree of weight on one 
side more than another, enables us to see what 
is our duty, and binds us to act accordingly. 

If, then, the analogy of nature only show- 
ed us that there was the lowest presumption 
of the truth of religion notwithstanding diffi- 
culties, men would be formally and absolute- 
ly bound to believe and obey it. But if this 



26 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

analogy shows that there is not merely a low 
presumption, but the highest probability of 
its truth, and that the very objections to it 
rest on such matters as are apparently in- 
conclusive, when applied to that system of 
things in Providence which is acknowledged 
to come from an All-wise and Almighty 
Creator ; nay more, that these very objec- 
tions may, for any thing we know, be really 
benefits, yea, most important instances, upon 
the whole, of the Divine goodness, the duty 
of the obedience to it becomes still more im- 
perative. And when it is considered that, 
besides this argument from analogy silencing 
our scruples, the numerous direct evidences 
of Christianity remain what they were before, 
unanswered and unanswerable, the obligation 
to receive the Christian doctrine becomes, in 
fact, the first and paramount duty of a rea- 
sonable and accountable creature ; and the 
rashness and guilt of rejecting it become cri- 
minal and absurd, in a degree which no words 
can express. 

This, then, is the general design of Bishop 
Butler. He undertakes to show, that men 
cannot reject Christianity on the footing of 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 27 

objections, without acting against those rules 
of probability by which they have been guid- 
ed all their lives in all their most important 
concerns, and by which they are guided con- 
tinually, and must be guided, however they 
may act with regard to Christianity. Thus 
our author leaves the unbeliever without ex- 
cuse — condemned by his own conduct on 
alHike occasions — condemned by the uni- 
versal experience of mankind — and acting 
in the most important of all subjects in an 
opposite manner to what common sense and 
common prudence compel him to do every 
day of his life, on the most momentous, as 
well as the slightest occasions. Such is the 
scope of this celebrated Treatise. If we 
have dwelt longer than might seem neces- 
sary in explaining it, let it be remembered, 
that it is the key to all that follows. 



28 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

ANALYSIS OF BISHOP BUTLER's ARGUMENT. 

After this sketch of the design of the Ana- 
logy, let us now proceed to give an idea, 

so FAR AS WE MAY BE ABLE, OF THE SEVE- 
RAL STEPS OF OUR author's ARGUMENT. 

We say, so far as we may be able ; for it is 
no easy task to compress and simplify a series 
of close and profound reasoning. However, 
some assistance may be given. The reader's 
patience is requested. Such an author de- 
mands and rewards the utmost attention, and 
cannot be understood without it. 

The whole Treatise is divided into two 
parts. In the First, the author shows, that 
the things principally objected against natural 
religion, are analogous to what is experienced 
in the course of nature, and, therefore, in- 
conclusive. In the Second, he shows the 
same as to Christianity, or Revealed Reli- 
gion. In the First Part, he considers, as we 
shall presently see more at length, by a sepa- 
rate review of each topic, that natural religion 
teaches, 1. That mankind is to live hereafter 
in a future state. 2. That there every one 
shall be rewarded or punished. 3. That 
these rewards and punishments will be ac- 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 29 

cording to men's good or evil behaviour here* 
4. That our present life is a probation, or 
trial. 5. That it is a state of moral disci- 
pline for a future life. 6. That the notion 
of necessity forms no valid objection against 
these truths ; and, 7. That as this plan of 
religion is but very partially made knowq to 
us in this world, no objections against its wis- 
dom and goodness are of any real weight. 
These points we shall consider in seven sepa- 
rate chapters. 

From this view of natural religion, we shall 
proceed with Butler in the. Second Part of 
his work, to weigh, 1. The importance of 
Christianity ; 2. The objections raised against 
it, on the ground of its being miraculous ; 
and, 3. Our incapacity of judging what was 
to be expected in a revelation, and the credi- 
bility that it would contain things apparently 
open to objections. 4. We shall next have 
to consider, Christianity as a scheme imper- 
fectly comprehended ; then, 5. The particu- 
lar system itself of Christianity, the appoint- 
ment of a Mediator, and the redemption of 
the world by him ; and, 6. The want of uni- 
versality in revelation, and the supposed de- 
4 



30 WILSON^S ANALOGY. 

ficiency in the proof of it. After this, we 
shall have to notice, 7. The objections against 
the particular evidence for Christianity ^ and 
lastly, 8. The objections which may be made 
generally against thus arguing from the anal- 
ogy of nature to religion. These will be the 
heads of eight chapters. The following re- 
view will accordingly contain seven chapters 
in the first division of it, and eight in the 
second. 

The author begins his Treatise (Part I. 
Chap. I.) with that which is the foundation 
of all our hopes and all our fears ; all our 
hopes and fears which are of any considera- 
tion — a Future Life. He takes for granted 
that there is an Intelligent Author of Nature, 
whose moral will and character is just and 
good in the very highest degree. This Au- 
thor of Nature formed the universe as it is, 
and carries on the course of it as he does, 
rather than in any other manner. Men, as 
rational creatures, cannot but reflect on the 
mysterious scheme of things in the midst of 
which they find themselves ; and cannot but 
inquire whence they came and whither they 
are going, and what will be the end or issue 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 31 

of the system in which they are placed. Now 
it will appear, in the first place, from con- 
sidering the analogy of nature, that there is 
nothing improbable in what religion teaches, 
that we are to exist in another life after death. 
There is, indeed, a confused suspicion, that 
in the great shock of the unknown event, 
death, our living powers will be destroyed. 
The sensible proof of our being possessed of 
these powers is removed. Death is terrible 
to us. Nature shrinks from it. Yet, when 
we come calmly to consider these apprehen- 
sions, we shall find them to be groundless. 

1. For it is clearly a general law of na- 
ture, that the same creatures should exist 
here in very different degrees of life and per- 
ception. We see instances of this law in the 
surprising change of worms into flies, and in 
birds and insects bursting their shell, and en- 
tering into a new world furnished with new 
accommodations for them. The states also 
in which we ourselves existed formerly in the 
womb, and in the years of infancy, are wide- 
ly different from the state of mature age. 
Nothing can be imagined more different. 
Therefore, that we are to exist hereafter in 



32 WILSON'S ANALOGl. 

a state as different from our present, as this 
is from our former one, is only according to 
the analogy of nature. 

2. There is a probability, in every case, 
that all things will continue as we now find 
them, in all respects, except those in which 
we have some positive reason to think they 
will be altered. This is a general law. Na- 
ture goes on as it is. This seems our only 
reason for believing that the course of the 
world will continue to-morrow, as it is to-day, 
and as it has done, so far as experience and 
history can carry us back. If then our liv- 
ing powers do not continue after death, there 
must be some positive reason for this, either 
in death itself, or in the analogy of nature. 

But there is no positive reason in death 
itself, for we know not what it is ; we only 
know some of its effects, such as the dissolu- 
tion of flesh, skin, and bones ; and these 
effects in nowise appear to imply the destruc- 
tion of the living agent. Sleep, or a swoon, 
shows us that the living powers may exist 
when there is no present capacity of exer- 
cising them. In fact we know not upon what 
the existence of our living powers depends. 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 33 

Nor does the analogy of nature furnish any- 
positive reason to think that death is our de- 
struction. For we have no facuhies where- 
with to trace any thing beyond, or through 
death, to see what becomes of those powers. 
Men were possessed of these powers up to 
the period to which we have faculties for 
tracing them ; it is probable, therefore, that 
they retain them afterwards. 

3. For our gross bodies are not ourselves, 
and therefore the destruction of them may be 
no destruction of ourselves. We see that 
men may lose their limbs, their organs of 
sense, and even the greatest part of their 
bodies, and yet remain the same living agents 
as before. Our organized bodies are mere- 
ly large quantities of matter which may be 
alienated, and actually are in a daily course 
of succession and change, whilst we remain 
the same living permanent beings notwith- 
standing. As, therefore, we have already^ 
several times over lost a great part of our 
body, or perhaps the whole of it, according 
to certain common established laws of nature ; 
so when we shall lose as great a part, or the 

whole, by another common established law 
4^f 



34 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

of nature, death, why may we not also re- 
main the same ? That the alienation has 
been gradual in one case, and will be more 
at once in the other, proves nothing to the 
contrary. 

4. But, more particularly, our bodies are 
clearly only organs and instruments of per- 
ception and motion. Our use of common 
optical instruments shows that we see with 
our eyes in the same sense, and in no other, 
as we see with glasses. These glasses, which 
are no part of our body, convey objects to- 
w^ards the perceiving power, just as our bodi- 
ly organs do. And if we see with our eyes 
only in this manner, the like may be con- 
cluded as to all our other senses. So with 
regard to the power of moving : upon the 
destruction of a limb, the active power re- 
mains ; and we can walk by the help of an 
artificial leg, just as we can make use of a 
pole to reach things beyond the length of the 
natural arm. We may therefore have no 
more relation to our external bodily organs, 
than we have to a microscope or a staff, or 
any other foreign matter, which we use as 
instruments of perception or motion : and the 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 35 

dissolution of these organs by death may be 
no destruction of the living agent. 

5. But farther, our powers of reflection do 
not, even now, depend on our gross body in 
the same manner as perception by the organs 
of sense does. In our present condition, the 
organs of sense are indeed necessary for con- 
veying in ideas to our reflecting powers, as 
carriages, and levers, and scaffolds are in 
architecture ; but when these ideas are once 
brought in, and stored up in the mind, we 
are capable of pleasure and pain by reflec- 
tion, without any further assistance from our 
senses. Mortal diseases often do not at all 
affect our intellectual powers, nor even sus- 
pend them. We see persons under those 
diseases, the moment before death, discover 
apprehension, memory, reason, all entire — 
the utmost force of affection, and the highest 
mental enjoyments and sufferings ; why then 
should a disease, when come to a certain de- 
gree, be thought to destroy those powers, 
which do not depend on the bodily senses, 
and which were not affected by that disease 
quite up to that degree? 

6. Nay, our future existence may pro- 



36 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

bably be not the beginning, properly speak- 
ing, of any thing new, but only the continu- 
ance, the going on of our present life as 
intelligent agents. Death may only answer 
to our birth, which is not a suspension of the 
faculties we had before, nor a total change 
of the state of life in which we existed when 
in the womb, but a continuance of both, with 
such and such great alterations. And our 
present relation to our bodily organs may be 
the only natural hindrance to our existing 
hereafter in a higher state of being and re- 
flection. 

7. But even if death suspends our living 
powers, which does not appear, yet a sleep 
or a swoon may teach us that the suspension 
of a power and the destruction of it, are ef- 
fects totally different. 

8. On the whole, the analogy of nature 
makes it probable, that as we are conscious 
that we are now living agents, so we shall go 
on to be such, notwithstanding the event of 
death, which, it is likely, may only serve to 
bring us into new scenes, and a new state of 
life and action, just as naturally as we came 
into the present. This will appear most pro- 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 37 

bable, if we would only leave off the delusive 
custom of substituting imagination in the room 
of experience, and would confine ourselves 
to what we really know and understand. 

Chapter II. A future state being once 
granted, an unbounded prospect is opened to 
our hopes and fears. The expectation of im- 
mortality is not a matter of indifference, but a 
subject of the deepest importance. For the 
whole analogy of nature shows that there is 
nothing incredible in the supposition that God 
will reward and punish men hereafter for their 
actions here. And it is infinitely unreasona- 
ble in men to act upon any other supposition. 

1. For in the present life, we see that 
pleasure and pain are the consequences of 
our actions, and that we are endued with 
capacities of foreseeing these consequences, 
and acting accordingly. This is the consti- 
tution of the Author of Nature. By pru- 
dence and care we may pass our days in 
tolerable quiet ; by rashness, passion, wilful- 
ness, or even by negligence, (which is very 
observable) we may make ourselves as mise- 
rable as we please. This is the general 



38 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

course of things. God's method as the Gov- 
ernor of the umVerse, is clearly to forewarn 
us of such and such things, and to give us 
capacities of foreseeing, that if we act so 
and so, we shall have such and such enjoy- 
ments and sufferings. 

2. It is then a simple matter of fact, that 
we are under the dominion of God here, just 
as we are under the dominion and rule of 
civil magistrates ; because the annexing plea- 
sure to some actions, and pain to others, and 
the giving notice of this beforehand, is the 
proper formal notion of government. We 
are thus compelled to admit, that the Author 
of Nature acts here as a Master or Governor : 
there can, therefore, be nothing incredible 
in the general doctrine of rehgion, that God 
will act thus hereafter — that is, will reward 
and punish men for their behaviour. 

3. But as divine punishment is what men 
chiefly object against, and are most unwilling 
to allow, it is important to observe, not mere- 
ly that there is a great deal of misery, in the 
world, but that there is a great deal, which 
men bring upon themselves, and which they 
might have foreseen and avoided. Now the 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 39 

circumstances of these natural punishments 
are such as these. — They are often the con- 
sequences of actions which procure many- 
present advantages, and bring much present 
pleasure. Again, they are often much greater 
than the advantages or pleasures of the ac- 
tions which they follow. They are frequent- 
ly delayed a great while ; sometimes till long 
after the actions occasioning them are forgot. 
They then come, after such delay, not by 
degrees, but suddenly, with violence, and at 
once. They are often not thought of during 
the actions themselves ; yet still they inevi- 
tably follow. Thus habits formed in youth 
are utter ruin for life ; though, for the most 
part, this consequence is little thought of at 
the time. 

4. We observe further, that the natural 
course of things gives us opportunities, which, 
like the seed-time, cannot be recalled if we 
once neglect them ; and that, in many cases, 
real repentance and reformation are of no 
avail to remedy or prevent the miseries natu- 
rally annexed to previous folly ; that neglects 
from mere inconsiderateness and want of at- 
tention, are often as fatal as from any active 



40 WrLSON^S ANALOGY. 

misconduct ; and that many natural punish- 
ments are mortal, and seem inflicted either 
to remove the offender out of the way of 
being further mischievous, or as an example 
to others. 

5. Now these things are not accidental, 
but are matters of every day's experience, 
proceeding from general laws by which God 
obviously is governing the world ; and they 
are so analogous to what religion teaches us 
concerning the future punishment of the wick- 
ed, that both may be expressed in the very 
same words. 

6. Especially we see, that after men's neg- 
lecting repeated warnings, and many checks, 
in a course of vice — after these have been 
long scorned — and after the worst conse- 
quences of their follies have been delayed for 
a great while ; at length their punishment 
breaks in upon them irresistibly, like an arm- 
ed force ; repentance is too late to relieve 
their misery — the case is desperate ; and 
poverty and sickness, remorse and anguish, 
infamy and death, overwhelm them, as the 
effects of their own behaviour, beyond the 
possibility of remedy or escape. 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 41 

7. Not that men are thus uniformly pun- 
ished here in proportion to their vices, but 
they often are : very many such cases occur, 
and dreadful ones too — cases quite sufficient 
to show what the laws of the universe may 
admit, and to answer all objections against 
future punishments, from the vain idea, that 
the frailty of nature, and the force of tempta- 
tions (as men sometimes speak) almost anni- 
hilate the guilt of human vices. 

8. Thus, on the whole, the particular final 
causes of pleasure and pain distributed by 
Almighty God here, prove that we are under 
his government, in the same way as subjects 
are under the rule of civil magistrates. And 
future rewards and punishments are but an 
appointment, analogous and of the same sort 
with what we thus actually experience in this 
world, in the regular course of universal Pro- 
vidence. 

Chap. III. But further ; this natural 
government of God, under which we now find 
ourselves, is a moral or righteous govern- 
ment. It is not merely a government by re- 
wards and punishments, like that which a 



42 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

master exercises over his servants, which in 
human affairs is often exercised tyrannically 
and partially, but one which renders to men 
according to their actions, considered as mo- 
rally good or evil. This is the next step in 
removing objections against natural religion. 

Men have no ground w^hatever to assert 
that God is simply and absolutely benevolent 
— this indeed may be so upon the whole — 
but he clearly manifests himself unto us as a 
righteous Governor. This government, in- 
deed, so far as it is seen here, and taken 
alone, is not complete and perfect ; but still 
a righteous government is carried on here, 
quite sufficiently to give us the apprehension 
that it shall be completed in a future life. 
We see now the clear beginnings, the rudi- 
ments of a moral government, notwithstand- 
ing all the confusion and disorder of the world. 
This is enough to answer all objections against 
the future judgment, which religion teaches 
us to expect. 

1. For as God is our Governor, no rule 
of his government appears to creatures en- 
dued with a moral nature as we are, so natu- 
ral, so unavoidable, considermg his infinite 



WILSON'S ANALOGY, 43 

perfections, as that of distributive justice. 
The expectation then of this is not in itself 
absurd or chimerical. 

2. Next, as God has endued us with ca- 
pacities of foreseeing the good and bad con- 
sequences of our behaviour, and rewards and 
punishes prudence and imprudence respective- 
ly, this plainly implies some sort of moral 
government. Tranquility and satisfaction fol- 
low a prudent management of our affairs ; and 
rashness and negligence bring after them many 
sufferings. These are instances of a right 
constitution of things here ; just as the correc- 
tion of children, when they run into danger, 
or hurt themselves, is a part of right education. 

3. Again, the Author of Nature has so 
appointed things, that vicious actions, as false- 
hood, injustice, cruelty, he. must be punish- 
ed, and are punished as mischievous to so- 
ciety. He has put mankind under a necessity 
of thus punishing them, just as he has put 
them undei' a necessity of preserving their 
lives by food. Thus men are, in some re- 
spects, unavoidably under a moral govern- 
ment here, they are punished or rewarded as 
being mischievous or beneficial to society. 



44 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

4. Again, we are so formed that virtue, 
as such, gives us satisfaction, at least in some 
instances ; vice, as such, and on its own ac- 
count, in none. This is a proof not only of 
government, but of moral government, begun 
and established — moral in the strictest sense, 
though not in that perfection of degree, which 
religion teaches us to expect. The sense of 
well and ill doing, the presages of conscience, 
the love which men have to good characters, 
and the dislike of bad ones ; honour, shame, 
gratitude ; vexation and remorse, arising from 
reflection on an action done by us, as being 
wrong; disturbance and fear, from a sense 
of being blameworthy : and, on the other 
hand, inward security and peace, compla- 
cency and joy of heart, accompanying the 
exercise of friendship, compassion, benevo- 
lence; — all this shows that we are placed 
here in a condition, in which our moral na- 
ture operates in favouring virtue and punish- 
ing vice. Vice cannot at all be, and virtue 
cannot but be, favoured on some occasions, 
and for its own sake, by ourselves and others. 
The one cannot but be miserable ; the other 
cannot but be happy in itself, in some degree. 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 45 

And though the wicked are at times prosper- 
ous, in some respects and externally, and the 
righteous afflicted, this cannot, and does not, 
drown the voice of Providence, plainly de- 
claring, in the course of things, for virtue 
upon the whole. For it is clear that these 
disorders are brought about by the perver- 
sion of passions, which were implanted in us 
for other, and those very good purposes. 

5. Once more, there is, in the natural 
course of things, a tendency in virtue and 
vice to produce their good and bad effects in 
a greater degree than they do in fact produce 
them. This is a very considerable thing. 
Good and bad men would be much more 
rewarded and punished here as such, were 
not justice eluded by various artifices, were 
not characters unknown, were not many oth- 
er hinderances presented by accidental caus- 
es. But these hinderances may be removed 
in a future state, and virtue enjoy its proper 
and full reward. In the mean time, these 
tendencies are declarations of God in his 
natural Providence in favour of virtue. To 
judge better of the tendency of virtue to pro- 
duce happiness, let any one consider what a 
5^ 



46 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

nation would become, if all its citizens were 
perfectly virtuous ; and that for a succession 
of ages. Wars would be unknown ; passions 
would be restrained ; crimes, factions, envy, 
jealousy, injustice would be banished ; laws 
and punishments would be unnecessary ; all 
w^ould contribute to the public prosperity, and 
each would enjoy the fruits of his own virtue. 
United wisdom would plan every thing, and 
united strength execute it. Such a kingdom 
would be Hke heaven upon earth. If any 
think the tendency of virtue to produce these 
results to be of little importance, I ask him 
what he would think if vice had essentially 
these advantageous tendencies. 

6. The notion, then, of a moral righteous 
government is suggested by the course of 
nature, and the execution of it is, as we have 
seen, actually begun ; and there is ground to 
believe that virtue and vice may be rewarded 
and punished hereafter in a higher degree 
than they are here, because the tendencies, 
to the perfection of this moral scheme are 
natural ; whilst the hinderances are only ac- 
cidental. 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 47 

Chap. IV. If this be so — if there be this 
moral government, then it implies, in the next 
place, that our present life is a state of pro- 
bation ; that our future interest is appointed 
to depend on our behaviour, just in the same 
manner as our temporal interest is appointed 
to depend on our behaviour. And this state 
of probation implies, in both cases, difficulty 
in securing our happiness, and the danger of 
losing it. 

1. For we are clearly at present in a 
state of trial as to this world, under God's 
natural government. So far as men are 
tempted to any course of action, which will 
probably occasion them greater inconvenience 
than satisfaction, they are in a state of trial as 
to their temporal interests, and those interests 
are in danger from themselves. Now, from 
the course of things around us, we have in- 
numerable temptations to forfeit and neglect 
these temporal interests, and to run ourselves 
into misery and ruin : thence arises the diffi- 
culty of behaving so as to secure our tempo- 
ral interests, and the hazard of behaving so 
as to miscarry in them. And outward temp- 
tations, concurring, as they always do, with 



48 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

inward habits and passions, as really put men 
in danger of voluntarily foregoing their ten>- 
poral interests, as their future ones, and as 
really render self-denial necessary to secure 
one as the other : so analogous are our states 
of trial in our temporal and religious capaci- 
ties. 

2. Again, as to both states we see that 
some men Scarcely look beyond the passing 
day, so much are they taken up with present 
gratifications ; that others are carried away 
by passions against their better judgment, and 
their feeble resolutions of acting better ; and 
that some even avow pleasure to be their 
rule of life, and go on in vice, foreseeing that 
it will be their temporal ruin, and apprehend- 
ing at times that it may possibly be their 
future ruin also. Thus the dangers in both 
states produce the same effects, as they pro- 
ceed from the same causes j that is, they are 
analogous and alike. 

3. Further, in both states our dangers are 
increased by the ill behaviour of others, by 
wrong education, bad example, corruption of 
religion, mistaken notions concerning happi- 
ness. 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 49 

4. Again, in both, men by negligence and 
folly bring themselves into new difficulties, 
no less than by a course of vice ; and by 
habits of indulgence become less qualified to 
meet them. For instance, wrong behaviour 
in youth increases the difficulty of right be- 
haviour in mature age ; that is, puts us in a 
more disadvantageous state of trial. 

6. In both, also, v^^e are in a condition 
which does not seem the most advantageous 
for securing our true interests. There are 
natural appearances of our being in a state of 
degradation. Yet we have no ground of 
complaint ; for as men may manage their tem- 
poral affairs by prudence, so as to pass their 
days in tolerable ease ; so with respect to 
religion, no more is required than we must 
be greatly wanting to ourselves if we neglect. 

6. Once more, as thought, and self-denial, 
and things far from agreeable, are absolutely 
necessary for securing our temporal interests, 
all presumption against the same being neces- 
sary for securing our higher interests is re- 
moved. 

7. Had we not experience as our guide, 
we might, indeed, in speculation, urge it to 



50 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

be impossible that any thing of hazard should 
be put upon us by an Infinite Being, since 
^very thing which is hazardous in our con- 
ception, is now already certain in his fore- 
knowledge. And indeed this may well be 
thought a difSculty in speculation, and cannot 
but be so, till we know the whole, or how- 
ever much more of the case. And if man- 
kind, as inhabitants of this world, really found 
themselv^es always in a settled state of secu- 
rity, without any solicitude on their part, and 
in no danger of falling into distresses and 
miseries, by carelessness or passion, by bad 
example, or the deceitful appearances of 
things,— then it would be some presumption 
against religion, that it represents us in a state 
of trial and danger as to our future happiness. 
But now the whole course of nature shows 
us that we are in a state of extreme hazard 
as to our temporal interests. And this con- 
stitution of things is settled by Almighty God 
as our natural Governor. It is as it is. This 
is quite clear. And this is sufficient to an- 
swer all objections against the credibility of 
our being in a state of trial and difficulty, 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 51 

under the moral government of the same 
God, as to our future and eternal interests. 

Chap. V. If we go on to ask, how we 
came to be placed in a probationary state of so 
much difficulty and hazard, we have already 
said that we can give no complete answer. 
Possibly it would be beyond our faculties, not 
only to find out, but even to understand the 
whole reason ; and even if we had faculties, 
whether it would be of service or prejudice 
to us to be informed of it, it is impossible to 
say. Still another question may be naturally 
put, to which a satisfactory reply may be 
given. If it be asked, What is our main duty 
here, as placed in this state of trial and diffi- 
culty ? analogy wull help us to answer, For 
moral discipline, as preparatory to a future 
state of security and happiness. The begin- 
ning of life in the present world, considered 
as an education for mature age, appears plain- 
ly, at first sight, analogous to this trial for a 
future one. 

1. For our nature here corresponds to 
our external condition, and what we call hap- 
piness is the result of this nature • and this 
condition. Now as there are some determi- 



62 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

nate character and qualifications necessary 
to men's enjoyment of the present life ; so 
analogy leads us to conclude, that there must 
be some determinate character and qualifica- 
tions to render men capable of the future life 
of the good hereafter. The one is set over 
against the other. 

2. In the next place, we see that the con- 
stitution and faculties of men are such, that 
they are capable of naturally becoming quali- 
fied for states of life, for which they were at 
first wholly unqualified. The human facul- 
ties are made for gradual enlargement; habit 
gives us new faculties in any kind of action, 
and produces secret, but settled and fixed 
alterations in our temper and character. As 
habits of the body are produced by repeated 
acts, so habits of the mind are produced by 
carrying into act inward principles ; such as 
obedience, submission to authority, veracity, 
justice, charity, attention, industry, self-gov- 
ernment. Habit forms men to these virtues ; 
just as habit forms the archer to skill, the 
porter to strength of arm, the racer to swift- 
ness, the artizan in every kind of manufac- 
ture, to adroitness and precision. Such is the 



WILSOJS'S ANALOGY. 53 

constitution of our nature. By accustoming 
ourselves to any course of action, we get an 
aptness to go on in it : the inclinations which 
made us averse to it grow weaker ; the real 
difficulties of it lessen ; the reasons for it offer 
themselves of course ; and thus a new cha- 
racter may be formed, not given us by na- 
ture, but which nature directs us to acquire. 
3. These capacities of improvement are 
most important. Man is left, considered in 
his relation to this world only, an unformed, 
weak, unfinished creature, wholly unqualified 
for the mature state of life to which he is de- 
signed. He needs the acquisitions of know- 
ledge, experience, and habits, in order at all 
to attain the ends of his creation. And he is 
placed, in childhood and youth, in a condi- 
tion fitted for supplying his deficiencies. 
Children from their birth are daily learning 
something necessary for them in the future 
scenes of their duty. The first years of life 
are a course of education for the practice of 
adult age. We are much assisted in it by 
example, instruction, and ihe care of others, 
^■^•it a great deal b ^^^^ ^^ ourselves to do ; 
iiiid dilig^iiv c, K^uxOy the voluntary foregoing 
6 



54 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

many things which we desire, and the setting 
ourselves to many things to which we have 
no inclination, are absolutely necessary to our 
doing this. All this is clear. We see it 
every day. In like manner, then, our being 
placed in a state of moral discipline through- 
out this life, as a state of education for ano- 
ther world, is a plain providential order of 
things, exactly of the same kind, and com- 
prehended under one and the same general 
law of nature. 

4. Nor would it be any objection against 
this view of things if we were not able to dis- 
cern in what way the present life could be a 
preparation for another ; for we actually da 
not discern how food and sleep bring about 
the growth of the body ; nor do children at 
all think that their sports contribute to their 
health, nor that restraint and discipline are so* 
necessary, as we know they are, to fit them 
for the business of mature age. 

5. But we are, in fact, able to discern 
how the present life is fit to be a state of dis- 
cipline for another. If we consider that God's 
government of us is a moraj one, and that 
consequendy piety and virtue are necessary 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 55 

qualifications for a future state, then we may 
distinctly see that the present course of things 
is adapted to improve us in virtue, and pre- 
pare us for a future world, just as childhood 
is a natural state of discipline, and a neces- 
sary preparation for mature age. Now how 
greatly we want moral improvement by dis- 
cipline is clear, from the great wickedness of 
the world, and the imperfections of the best 
men. This every one sees. 

6. But all do not see that mankind, not 
merely as corrupt, but as finite creatures, 
need the habits of virtue, which discipline 
goes to form, to keep them from deviating 
from what is right. Men, from the very 
constitution of their nature, before habits 
of virtue are formed, are in danger. For 
the natural objects of the affections, continue 
to be such, whether they can be obtained in- 
nocently or not ; and such affections have a 
tendency to incline us to venture upon unlaw- 
ful means of obtaining them. The practical 
principle of virtue is then the security against 
this danger ; and this principle is strengthened 
by discipline and exercise ; and thus guards 



56 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

against the danger arising from the very na- 
ture of particular affections. 

7. If such finite creatures as men, endued 
with particular affections and moral under- 
standing, had all these several parts upright 
or finitely perfect, they would still be in dan- 
ger of falling, and would require experience 
and habits to improve them, and place them 
in a secure state. As these habits strength- 
en, their dangers would lessen, and their 
security increase. For virtuous self-govern- 
ment is not only right in itself, but improves 
the inward constitution and character ; just 
as vicious indulgence is not only criminal in 
itself, but also weakens and depraves the in- 
ward constitution and character. And thus 
we may conceive how creatures without 
blemish may be in danger of going wrong, 
and may need the additional security of vir- 
tuous habits. 

8. But how much more strongly must 
this hold with respect to those who have cor- 
rupted their natures. Upright creatures may 
want to be improved; depraved creatures want 
to be renewed. Discipline is expedient for 
the upright; but absolutely necessary for the 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 57 

depraved — and discipline of the severer sort 
too. 

9. Now the present world is peculiarly 
fitted to be a state of discipline for this pur- 
pose. Temptation, experience of the deceits 
of wickedness, our past faults, the vice and 
disorder of the world — pain, sorrow, disap- 
pointment, vexation — all have a tendency to 
bring us to that moderation of temper which 
is contrary to the violent bent to follow pre- 
sent inclination, which may be observed in 
undisciplined minds. Such experience gives 
a practical sense of things. And possibly 
the security of creatures in the highest state 
of perfection may, in part, arise from their 
having had such a sense of things as this 
habitually fixed within them, in a state of 
probation. Their having passed through the 
present world with that moral attention which 
a state of discipline requires, may leave ever- 
lasting impressions of this sort upon their 
minds. Now when the exercise of the virtu- 
ous principle is continued, often repeated and 
mtense, as it must be in circumstances of 
danger and temptation, the habit of virtue is 
proportionably increased. Thus the present 
6^ 



68 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

world IS peculiarly fit to be a state of disci- 
pline, in the same sense as some sciences, by 
requiring and engaging the attention, not, to 
be sure, of such persons as will not, but of 
such as will, set themselves to them ; are fit 
to form the mind to habits of attention. 

iO. Accordingly we find there are some 
persons who follow an inward principle of 
piety, and to whom the present world is an 
exercise of virtue peculiarly adapted to im- 
prove it — adapted to improve it, in some 
respects, even beyond what it would be by 
the exercise of it in a perfectly virtuous so- 
ciety. 

11. That the present world does not 
actually become a state of moral discipline to. 
the generality, is no proof that it was not in- 
tended to be so : for out of the immense 
number of seeds of vegetables, and bodies of 
animals which are adapted to improve to such 
and such a point of natural maturity and per- 
fection, we do not see that perhaps one in a 
thousand does thus improve ; yet no one will 
deny that those seeds and bodies which do 
so attain to that point of maturity, answer the 
end for which they were designed by nature, 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 69 

and therefore that nature designed them for 
that perfection. And such an amazing waste 
in nature, with respect to these seeds and 
bodies, by foreign causes, is, to us as unac- 
countable as, what is much more terrible, the 
present and future ruin of so many moral 
agents by themselves, that is, by vice. 

12. Further, these observations on the 
active principle of obedience to God, are ap- 
plicable to passive obedience to his will, or 
resignation, which is another essential part of 
a right character. For though we may have 
no need of patience in a future state, yet we 
rnay have need of that temper, which pa- 
■tience has formed ; and the proper discipline 
for patience and resignation is affliction. This 
resignation, together with the active principle 
of obedience, makes up the temper which 
answers to God's sovereignty, to his rightful 
authority, as supreme over all. 

13. It cannot be objected to all this, that 
the trouble and danger of this discipline might 
have been spared us by our being made at 
once the characters which we were to be- 
come ; for we see by experience that what 
we are to become is to depend on what we 



60 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

will do ; and that the genera] law of nature 
is, not to save us trouble or danger, but to 
make us capable of going through it. 

14. The world, further, is a state of pro- 
bation, is a theatre of action for the manifes- 
tation of persons' characters, as a means of 
their being disposed of suitably to those cha- 
racters, and of its being known to the crea- 
tion by way of example that they are so dis- 
posed of. 

15. It thus appears clearly, on the whole, 
that our present state of difficulty and trial is 
intended to be a school of discipline for ac- 
quiring the qualifications necessary for a fu- 
ture state of safety and happiness. 

Chap. VI. Nor does the opinion of ne- 
cessity weaken the credibility of the general 
doctrine of religion thus confirmed by Analo- 
gy. For if any persons consider the notion 
of universal necessity or fate to be reconcilea- 
ble with the acknowledged condition of men 
as under God's natural government now, (and 
to such persons only does this whole treatise 
address itself) they must also consider it to 
be reconcileable with the scheme of religion 



WILSON^S ANALOGY. 61 

1. For necessity clearly does not exclude 
deliberation, choice, and the acting from cer- 
tain principles to certain ends, as to the things 
of this present world ; because all this is mat- 
ter of undoubted experience. For if the in- 
stance of a house be taken, the Fatalist as 
well as others, would agree that it was de- 
signed and built by an architect ; and they 
would only differ upon the question, whether 
the architect built it in the manner, which we 
call necessarily, or in the manner which we 
call freely. The idea of necessity does not, 
then, at all destroy the proof that there is an 
intelligent Author and Governor of nature, 
any more than that the house was built by an 
architect. 

2. Nor does necessity destroy at all the 
scheme of religion. For as to the things of this 
world, suppose a Fatalist to bring up a child 
in the idea that he is not a subject of blame 
or praise for his actions, because he cannot 
help doing what he does. The child would 
be vain and conceited, and go on following 
his will and passions till he became first the 
plague of himself and family, and then insup- 
portable to society ; and thus he would soon 



62 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

do something, for which he would be deliver- 
ed over into the hands of justice. In this 
way the correction he would meet with, and 
the misery consequent upon it, w^ould soon 
convince him, that either the scheme of ne- 
cessity, in which he was educated was false, 
or that he reasoned inconclusively upon it, 
and somehow or other misapplied it to prac- 
tice and common life. In like manner, what 
the Fatalist experiences of the conduct of 
Providence at present, ought in all reason to 
convince him, that either his scheme of ne- 
cessity is false, or that somehow or other it 
is misapplied, when brought to practical duty 
and rehgion in common life. Under the pre- 
sent natural government of the world, we are 
obviously dealt with as if we were free ; and 
therefore the analogy of nature answers all 
objections to our being dealt with as free, 
with regard to another world. Thus the 
notion of necessity, whether true or not in 
speculation, is not applicable to practical sub- 
jects. With respect to them it is as if it were 
not true. 

3. Again, we find, by constant experi- 
ence, that happiness and misery are not ne- 



i 



WILSOx\'S ANALOGY. 63 

cessary here, in such a sense as not to be the 
consequences of our behaviour, for they are 
the clear consequences of it ; and God exer- 
cises over us the same kind of government 
in this world, as a father does over his chil- 
dren, and a civil magistrate over his subjects. 
These are matters of fact, things of experi- 
ence, which cannot be affected by the opin- 
ion about necessity. In like manner, God's 
moral government over men, as taught by 
religion, cannot be affected by that opinion. 

4. Besides, natural religion has an exter- 
nal evidence, a positive foundation in facts 
and data, w^iich the mere opinion of neces- 
sity cannot affect. 

5. And, if men should say that. Necessity 
being true, it is incredible that God should 
govern us upon a supposition of freedom 
which is false ; the plain answer is, that there 
must be a fallacy somewhere in this conclu- 

.sion, for the whole analogy of nature proves 
that God does govern us by rewards and 
punishments as free agents. And the fallacy 
lies, supposing necessity to be true, in taking 
it for granted that necessary agents cannot 
be rewarded and punished for their behaviour. 



64 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

6, Thus, the notion of necessity, sup- 
posing it can be reconciled with the constitu- 
tion of things, and what we experience under 
God's rule here, is equally and entirely re- 
concileable with the scheme of religion also. 

Chap. VII. Still objections may be in- 
sisted upon against the wisdom, equity, and 
goodness of the divine government implied 
in the notion of religion, to which analogy 
(which can only show that such and such 
things are credible, considered as matters of 
fact,) can give no direct answer. But if 
analogy suggests that the divine government 
is a scheme or system, as distinguished from 
a number of unconnected acts of justice and 
goodness, and a scheme imperfectly compre- 
hended, then this gives a general, though in- 
direct answer to all objections against the 
justice and goodness of that government. 

1. Now in this present world and the 
whole natural government of it, there is obvi- 
ously a scheme or system carried on, whose 
parts correspond to each other ; so that there 
is no natural event so single and unconnected 
as not to have respect to some other actions 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 65 

or events : just as any work of art, or any- 
particular civil constitution of government, is 
a scheme, and has various correspondent parts. 
Nor can we give the whole account of any- 
one thing whatever in nature — of all its 
causes, ends, and necessary adjuncts, with- 
out which it could not havfe been. Things 
seemingly the most insignificant imaginable, 
are perpetually discovered to be necessary 
conditions of other things of the greatest im- 
portance. 

2. The natural world, then, being such 
an incomprehensible scheme, so incompre- 
hensible that a man must really, in the literal 
sense, know nothing at all, who is not sensi- 
ble of his ignorance of it ; this strongly shows 
tbe credibility that the moral world may be 
so too. Indeed the natural and moral world 
are so connected, as probably to make up 
together but one scheme ; and thus the first 
may be carried on in subserviency to the 
second ; as the vegetable world is for the 
animal, and the animal for the rational. 

3. In this way every act of Divine justice 
and goodness may look much beyond itself, 
and may have some reference to a general 



66 WILSON'S ANALOG^. 

moral system ; yea, may have such respedt 
to all other acts, as to make up altogether a 
whole, connected and related in all its parts, 
which is as properly one as the natural World is. 
And if so, then it is most clear that we are 
not at all competent judges of this vast scheme, 
from the small parts of it, which come with- 
in our view in the present life, and that ob- 
jections against any of these parts are utterly 
unreasonable. Yet this ignorance, which is 
universally acknowledged on other like occa- 
sions, is, if not denied, yet universally forgot- 
ten on the subject of religion where it is most 
strikingly applicable. Even reasonable men 
do not make allowance enough for it. And 
this ignorance answers all objections against 
religion ; because if religion be a scheme in- 
comprehensible to us, some unknown rela- 
tion, or some unknown impossibility, may 
render the very things objected to, just and 
good ; nay, just and good in the highest prac- 
ticable degree. 

4. But more particularly, we see in the 
natural world, that as no ends are accom- 
plished without means, so means v^ery undesira- 
ble are found to bring about ends so desirable 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 67 

as to overbalance much the previous disa- 
greeableness — means which, before exjoeri- 
ence, we. should have thought to have a con- 
trary tendency. Thus, in the moral world, 
things which we call irregularities may not be 
so, but may be means of accomplishing wise 
and good ends more considerable than the 
apparent irregularities; yea, the only means 
by which those ends are capable of being 
accomplished. 

5. This, however, is no argument to show 
that it is not infinitely obligatory on us, and 
beneficial to abstain from what is evil. For 
thus, in the wise and good constitution of the 
natural world, there are disorders, which 
bring their own cures ; yea, some diseases, 
which are remedies. As many men would 
undoubtedly have died had it not been for 
the gout or a fever ; yet it would be thought 
madqess to say that sickness is a better state 
than health ; though men have asserted the 
like absurdity to this, with regard to the 
moral world and moral evil. 

6. Again, the natural world is carried on 
by general laws, and not by particular inter- 
positions to prevent or remedy irregularities, 



68 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

as the moral world may also be ; and in both 
there may be the wisest reasons for this 
scheme, for any thing we know. Perpetual 
interposition would, for instance, clearly en- 
courage indolence, and render the rule of 
life dubious, which is now ascertained by this 
very thing, that the course of the world is 
carried on by general laws. And if this be 
the case, then the not interposing on every 
particular occasion, is so far from being a 
ground of complaint, that it is an instance of 
goodness. This is intelligible and sufficient ; 
and going farther seems beyond the utmost 
reach of our faculties. It is to go on quite 
at random and in the dark. 

7. Thus our ignorance answers all objec- 
tions against the scheme of religion, as we 
have shown ; because it is not a total igno- 
rance, as some have said, of the whole subject, 
which would preclude equally all proof, and 
all objection, but a partial ignorance, which 
allows us to understand that the end of the 
scheme is moral, but does not allow us to 
comprehend what means are best to accom- 
plish this end. Therefore, our ignorance is 
an answer to objections against Providence 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 69 

in permitting irregularities, as seeming contra- 
dictory to this end. Analogy shows that it 
is not at all incredible, that if we could know 
the whole, we should find the things objected 
to consistent with justice and goodness, yea, 
instances of it. Thus we do not argue from 
our ignorance properly speaking, but from 
something which analogy shows us concern- 
ing that ignorance. For analogy positively 
shows us that our ignorance of the various 
relations of things in nature, makes us incom- 
petent judges in cases similar to this of reli- 
gion, in which we pretend to judge. 

8. Finally, we are thus led to consider 
this little scene of human life in which we are 
so busy, as having a reference to a much 
larger plan of things. Whether we are re- 
lated to the more distant parts of the bound- 
less universe, is altogether uncertain. But 
it is evident that we are placed in the middle 
of a progressive scheme, incomprehensible 
with respect to what has been, what now is, 
and what shall be hereafter. Thus all short- 
sighted objections against God's moral gov- 
ernment are answered ; and it is absurd — 

absurd to the degree of being ridiculous3 if the 
7^ 



70 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

subject were not of so serious a kind, for 
men to lay any stress on these objections, 
and think themselves secure in a vicious life, 
or even in that immoral thoughtlessness into 
which far the greatest part of men are fallen. 

PART II.— Chap. I. The chief diffi- 
culties against natural religion, as implying a 
moral government, and a state of trial and 
discipline preparatory for a future world, 
being removed, we proceed to consider Chris- 
tianity, and the objections raised against it. 
And we begin by showing the vast impor- 
tance of Christianity itself. 

1. To say that mankind do not want a 
revelation, is as extravagant as it would be 
to say, that they are so completely at ease 
and happy in the present life, that their con- 
dition could not be made better. Those who 
consider the state of religion in the heathen 
world before revelation, and the present state 
of it where revelation is unknown, cannot in 
seriousness think revelation incredible, upon 
pretence of its being unnecessary. 

2. But many admit Christianity to be 
true, but object to the importance of it, on 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 71 

the ground, that to act on the principles of 
natural religion is enough, as Christianity is 
only designed to enforce the practice of vir- 
tue. This is to suppose that it is a matter of 
indifference whether we obey God's com- 
mands or not, of which there may be infinite 
reasons with which we are not acquainted. 

3. But the high importance of Christiani- 
ty w^ill appear, if we consider, 1st, That it is 
a republication of natural religion, teaching it 
in its genuine purity, investing it with the ad- 
ditional evidence and authority arising from 
miracles and prophecy, affording a proof of 
God's general providence as Governor of the 
world, with a degree of force to which that 
of nature is but mere feebleness, erecting a 
visible church, as a standing memorial to the 
world of its duty to its Maker, giving men 
the written oracles of God, which cast the 
light of revelation on the darkness of nature, 
as to the most important subjects ; and estab- 
lishing a regular education of youth in the 
principles and habits of piety. 

4. If men object to this, that Chrisjtianity 
has been perverted, and has had but little 
good influence, we answer, that the law of 



72 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

nature has been perverted and rendered in- 
effectual in the same manner; and yet this is 
allowed to be from God. And it may be 
truly said, that the good effects of Christianity 
have not been small ; nor its supposed ill ef- 
fects, any effects at all of it, properly speak- 
ing. Perhaps, too, the perversions them- 
selves imputed to it have been aggravated ; 
and if not, Christianity has often been only a 
pretence ; and the same evils would have 
been done, in the main, upon some other pre- 
tence. However, they are no arguments 
against Christianity. For one cannot pro- 
ceed a step in reasoning upon natural reli- 
gion, any more than upon Christianity, with- 
out laying it down as a first principle, that 
the dispensations of Providence are not to be 
judged of by their perversions, but by their 
genuine tendencies : not from what they ac- 
tually effect, but from what they would effect, 
if mankind did their part. 

5. Thus Christianity is most important, 
and the guilt of neglecting it is great, only 
considered as a supernatural aid to decayed 
natural religion, and a new promulgation of 
Ood's general providence, as righteous Gov- 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 73 

ernor of the world. Especially as this neg- 
lect further involves in it the omitting to do 
what is expressly enjoined us by God, for 
continuing the benefits of it to the world, and 
transmitting them down to future times. 

6. But, 2dly, Christianity contains be- 
sides, an account of a dispensation of things 
not at all discoverable by reason ; a dispen- 
sation carrying on by the Son of God and the 
Holy Spirit for the recovery of man, whom 
the Scriptures every where take for granted 
to be in a state of ruin. In consequence of 
this, many obligations of duty, unknown be- 
fore, are revealed ; and these obligations of 
duty to the Son and Spirit, arise from the 
offices which belong to these Divine Persons, 
and from the relations in which they stand 
to us ; and are infinitely important. For 
these reasons, we are commanded to be bap- 
tized in the name of the Father, and of the 
Son, and of the Holy Ghost. By natural 
religion we know the relation in which God 
the Father stands to us ; and hence arises 
the bond of duty which we are under to Him. 
In Scripture are revealed the relations in 
which the Son and Spirit stand to us ; and 



74 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

hence arise the bonds of duty which we are 
under to them. It being once admhted that 
God is the Governor of the world upon the 
evidence of reason, and that Christ is the 
mediator between God and man, and the 
Holy Ghost our guide and sanctifier, upon 
the evidence of revelation, it is no more a 
question whether it be our duty to obey, and 
be baptized into the name of the Son, and of 
the Holy Ghost, than whether it be our duty 
to obey, and be baptized into the name of the 
Father. 

7. The essence of natural religion may 
be said to consist in religious regards to God 
the Father ; and the essence of revealed re- 
ligion, in religious regards to the Son and 
Holy Ghost, to whom reverence, honour, 
love, trust, gratitude, fear, hope, are due, 
from the several relations in which they stand 
to us. Thus Christianity appears most im- 
portant. It informs us of something wholly 
new in the state of the world and in the 
government of it, of some relations in which 
we stand, which could not otherwise have 
been known. And these relations being real, 
the neglect of behaving suitably to them will 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 75 

be followed with the same kind of conse- 
quences under God's governnaent, as neglect- 
ing to behave suitably to any other relations. 
If Christ, then, be our Mediator, our Lord, 
and our Saviour, the consequences not only 
of an obstinate, but of a careless disregard to 
him in those high relations, may follow in a 
future world, as surely in a way of judicial 
punishment, and even of the natural conse- 
quences of vice, as those kinds of consequen- 
ces follow vice in this world. 

8. Again, if the nature of man is corrupt, 
and needs the assistance of God's Holy Spirit 
to renew it, it cannot be a slight matter to 
neglect the means appointed of God for ob- 
taining this assistance. All analogy shows 
us, that we cannot expect benefits without 
the use of the commanded means — every 
thing in God's government being conducted 
by means. 

9. The conclusion from all this is, that 
Christianity being supposed credible, it is un- 
speakable irreverence, and really the most 
presumptuous rashness to treat it as a light 
matter, and unimportant. 

10. Before we go on to the next topic, 



76 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

we may stop here to point out the distinction 
between what is positive and what is moral in 
religion. Moral precepts are those of which 
we see the reason — positive, of which we do 
not: moral arise out of the nature of the case 
— positive from external command. But the 
4nere manner in which the reason of the pre- 
cept, and the nature of the case are made 
known to us, makes no difference in our duty. 
Gratitude and love are as much due to Christ 
as moral precepts, as they are due to the 
Father ; though the first are derived from 
revelation making Christ known to us as our 
Mediator ; the second, from reason teaching 
us that the Father is our Creator, and the 
Fountain of all good. 

11. From this distinction between posi- 
tive and moral precepts, we may observe, 
that we see the ground of that preference 
which the Scripture gives to moral precepts 
over positive, if the two are incompatible. 
We are to prefer the moral, because we see 
the reason of them, and because the positive 
^re only means to a moral end, and are of 
no value, except as proceeding from a moral 
principle. Men are prone to place their re- 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. . 77 

ligion in positive rites, as an equivalent for 
moral duty ; and, therefore, the Scriptures 
always lay the stress on morals, where they 
are mentioned, together with positive rites ; 
and our Lord expresses the general spirit of 
religion when he says, ' I will have mercy, 
and not sacrifice.' 

Still we are not to omit positive institu- 
tions ; because, when admitted to come from 
God, they lay us under a strict moral obliga- 
tion to obey them. 

12. To these remarks should be added, 
that the view we have thus given of Chris- 
tianity, teaches us, not to determine before- 
hand from reason what the scheme of it must 
be, but to search the Scriptures for it ; for it 
is no presumption against an interpretation of 
Scripture, that it contains a doctrine which 
the light of nature cannot discover, or a pre- 
cept to which the law of nature does not 
oblige. 

13. All these considerations serve to 
heighten the importance of Christianity, as 
not consisting of positive commands merely, 
but as revealing new duties resting on new 

8 



78 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

relationSj and being in the strictest sense 
moral. 

Chap. II. The importance of Christiani- 
ty having been thus shown, let us next in- 
quire what presumptions or objections there 
appear to be against revelation in general, or 
at least against miracles, as if they required 
stronger evidence than other matters of fact 
do. 

These presumptions must arise either from 
Christianity not being discoverable by reason 
and experience, or because it is unlike the 
course of nature as it now is. 

1. But there is no presumption against it, 
because not discoverable by reason ; for sup- 
pose any one to be acquainted with what is 
called the system of natural philosophy and 
natural religion, he would feel that he knew 
but a small part of them, and that there 
must be innumerable things of which he was 
wholly ignorant. The scheme of nature is 
vast beyond all possible imagination, and 
what we know of it is but as a point in com- 
parison of the whole. Therefore, that things 
lie beyond the reach of our faculties in Chris- 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 79 

tianity, is no sort of presumption against It, 
because it is certain there are innumerable 
things in nature which do so. 

2. Nor is there any presumption against 
Christianity, from the present course of na- 
ture, for analogy by no means leads us to 
suppose, that the whole course of things un- 
known to us, and every thing in it, is like to 
any thing in that course of things which is 
known. Even in the natural course of the 
world, we see things extremely unlike one 
another. But the truth is, the scheme of 
Christianity is not wholly unlike the scheme 
of nature, as we shall show hereafter. 

3. Nor is there any presumption from 
analogy against some operations which we 
should call miraculous, particularly none 
against a revelation at the beginning of the 
world ; for then there had been no course of 
nature, and therefore the question of a reve- 
lation, at that time, is only a common ques- 
tion of fact. Creation was wholly different 
from the present course of nature ; and 
whether this power stopped after forming 
man, or went on and gave him a revelation, 
is a question of simple fact. 



80 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

4. Nor is there any presumption against 
miracles, after the settlement of the course of 
nature. For we have no single parallel case 
of a world like our own, to deduce an argu- 
meat from ; and if we had a case, an argu- 
ment from the analogy of that single instance 
would have little weight. We require the 
history of many similar worlds from which to 
raise any thing like a presumption. 

5. Besides, we know there is often a pre- 
sumption against the commonest facts before 
the proof of them, which yet almost any 
proof overcomes. And we are in such igno- 
rance, that it is not improbable, that 5 or 
6000 years may have given scope for ade- 
quate causes for miracles, even leaving out 
the consideration of religion. But if we take 
in the consideration of religion, we then see 
distinct reasons for miracles, which give a 
real credibility to them. At all events, mira- 
cles must not be compared to common natu- 
ral circumstances and phenomena, but to the 
extraordinary phenomena of nature, — co- 
mets, the powers of electricity, &c. And 
let any one reflect what would be the pre- 
sumption, for instance, against the powers of 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 81 

electricity, in the mind of one acquainted 
only with the common powers of nature. 

6. There is, therefore, no such presump- 
tion against miracles as to render them, in 
any wise incredible ; nay, there is a positive 
credibility for them, where we discern rea- 
sons for them ; and there is no presumption 
at all from analogy, even in the lowest de- 
gree, against them, as distinguished from 
other extraordinary phenomena. 

Chap. III. We come now to consider 
objections against the Christian revelation in 
particular, as distinct from objections against 
miracles — objections drawn from things in 
it, appearing to men ' foolishness ;' from its 
containing matters of offence, leading, as it is 
alleged, to enthusiasm, superstition, and ty- 
ranny ; from its not being universal ; and 
from its evidence not being so convincing as 
it might have been. 

1. Now it is credible from analogy that 
we should be incompetent judges of a reve- 
lation to a great degree, and that it would 
contain many things appearing to us liable to 
objection. There is no more ground to ex- 
8^ 



82 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

pect that Christianity should appear free 
from objections, than that the course of na- 
ture should. And the fact is, that men fall 
into infinite follies and mistakes, when they 
pretend to judge of the ordinary constitution 
and course of nature, and of what they should 
expect it to be. It is therefore probable that 
men would err much more when they pre- 
tend to judge of the extraordinary constitu- 
tion and scheme of Christianity, and of what 
they should expect it to be. For if a man, 
in the things of this present world, is not a 
competent judge of the ordinary government 
of a Prince ; much less would he be so of 
any extraordinary exigencies on which that 
Prince should suspend his known and ordi- 
nary laws. Thus objections against Chris- 
tianity are really frivolous. If men fancy 
there lie great objections against the scheme 
of Providence in the ordinary and old laws 
of nature, much more may they fancy there 
lie objections against the scheme of Chris- 
tianity in the extraordinary, and new laws of 
religion. Both schemes are from the same 
God. And the objections against Christiani- 
ty go upon suppositions which, when applied 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 83 

to the course of nature, experience shows to 
be inconclusive. They mislead us to think 
that the Author of nature would not act, as 
we find by experience he actually does, or 
would act in such and such a manner, as we 
€xperience, in like cases, he does not. 

2. For instance, we are no sort of judges 
before-hand, by what laws, in what degree, 
or by what means it were to have been ex- 
pected that God would instruct us naturally 
in his ordinary Providence ; how far he 
would enable men to communicate it to oth- 
ers ; whether the evidence of it would be 
certain, highly probable, or doubtful ; whether 
it would be given with equal clearness to all ; 
whether at once, or gradually. In like man- 
ner, supposing God afforded us an additional 
instruction by a revelation, we must be equal- 
ly ignorant beforehand whether the evidence 
of it would be certain, whether all would 
have the same degree of evidence, whether 
it would be revealed at once or gradually, &ic. 

Now if we are incompetent to judge be- 
forehand of revelation, it is mere folly to ob- 
ject afterwards against its being left in one 
way rather than another. 



84 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

3. The only fair question is, whether 
Christianity be a real revelation, and whether 
the book containing it be of divine authority ; 
and scarcely at all* whether it be a revelation, 
and a book of such and such a sort. So 
that, what men object against the Scriptures 
as being obscure, as written in an inaccurate 
style, as having various readings, and being 
the subject of dispute, has no sort of force, 
unless it can be shown that the sacred au- 
thors had promised that the book should be 
secure from these things. We are no judges 
whether it were to have been expected that 
these things should be found in it or not. In 
human writings we should indeed be judges, 
but not at all in divine. 

4. However, if men will pretend still to 
judge of the Scriptures, and of Christianity, 
by previous expectation, then the analogy of 
nature shows, that probably they will imagine 
they have strong objections against them. 
For so, prior to experience, they would think 
they had against the instruction afforded in 
the ordinary course of nature. For instance, 
it would have been thought incredible that 
men should have been so much more capable 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 85 

of discovering, even to a certainty, the gene- 
ral laws of matter, and the magnitudes and 
revolutions of the heavenly bodies, than the 
cure of diseases, and many other things in 
which human life is so much more nearly 
concerned. The method of invention again, 
by which men discover things of the greatest 
moment in an instant, when perhaps they are 
thinking of something else, which they have 
in vain been searching after for years, would 
be thought most irregular and capricious. 
So likewise the imperfections attending the 
only method we have of communicating our 
thoughts to each other, language, would be 
judged utterly incredible. It is inadequate, 
ambiguous, liable to infinite abuse. Now no 
objections against the manner in which Chris- 
tianity teaches in the Scriptures, are of greater 
weight than these, which analogy shows us to 
have really no force at all. 

5. To apply these remarks to a particu- 
lar instance. The abuse of miraculous pow- 
ers is made an objection against their being 
really miracles ; but w^e see in the natural 
course of things daily, that remarkable gifts of 
memory, eloquence, knowledge, are not al- 



86 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

ways conferred on persons who use them with 
prudence and propriety. 

6. Again, as in natural and civil know- 
ledge, there are common and obvious rules 
of conduct, and parts requiring very exact 
thought ; so, in Christianity the necessary 
matters of faith and practice are a plain and 
obvious thing ; whilst many other parts de- 
mand careful investigation. And as natural 
knowledge is acquired by particular persons 
comparing and pursuing obscure hints drop- 
ped us by nature, as it were, accidentally, or 
which seem to come into our minds by 
chance ; so probably the entire scheme of 
Christianity in the Scriptures will only be 
gradually understood, by particular persons 
attending to intimations scattered up and 
down in it, and which most persons disre- 
gard. Nor is it incredible that a book so 
long known should contain many truths not 
yet completely discovered ; for nature has 
been open to the investigation of man for 
many thousand years, and yet great discove- 
ries are continually made. 

7. And if men object against Christianity, 
that it is not universally known, we reply, 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 87 

that many most valuable remedies for natural 
diseases were unknown for ages, and are 
known now but to few ; that probably many 
are not known yet ; that the application of 
them, when known, is difficult ; that if used 
amiss, they often create new diseases ; that 
they are often not effectual ; and that the 
regimen required is often so disagreeable that 
men will not submit to it, but satisfy them- 
selves with the excuse, that if they did sub- 
mit, it is not certain they should be cured. 
These natural remedies are neither certain, 
perfect, nor universal ; and the principles of 
arguing which would lead us to conclude 
they must be so, would not only be contrary 
to fact, but would also lead us to conclude 
that there would be no diseases at all. It is 
therefore not at all incredible that the like 
things should be found in the remedy for 
moral diseases, Christianity, if it proceeds 
from the same divine hand as natural reme- 
dies do. 

Chap. IV. The objections against Chris- 
tianity are thus merely what we might have 
expected. But further, these objections re- 



^8 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

ceive a full answer from the consideration 
that Christianity is a scheme imperfectly com- 
prehended, in which a system of means is 
established, and which is carried on by gene- 
ral laws ; just as objections against natural 
religion were shown to be thus silenced. For 
this shows that the things objected to may, 
in each case, not only be consistent with 
wisdom and goodness, but instances of them. 
1. Now Christianity is a scheme quite 
beyond our comprehension. It is a mysteri- 
ous economy, still carrying on for the re- 
covery of the world by a divine person, the 
Messiah, who, after various preparatory dis- 
pensations, became incarnate, and died as 
a Sacrifice for sin. Parts likewise of this 
scheme are the miraculous and ordinary mis- 
sion of the Holy Ghost, Christ's invisible 
government over his church, and his second 
advent to judgment. Now the Scriptures 
assert this to be a mystery ; indeed, what is 
revealed of it, leaves so much unrevealed, 
that one cannot read a passage but what it 
runs up into something which shows us our 
ignorance about it ; so that to all purposes of 
objecting, we know as little of it, as we know 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 89 

of the vast scheme of the natural world, 
where every step shows us our ignorance, 
short-sightedftess, and incompetence to judge. 

2. In the Christian scheme, again, as in 
the course of nature, means which appear 
foolish, though they may possibly be the very 
best, are used to accomplish ends ; and their 
appearing foolish is no presumptior] against 
them, in a scheme so greatly beyond our 
comprehension. 

3. Christianity is also probably carried 
on by general laws. The course of nature is 
confessedly so ; and yet we know but little 
of these general laws. We know not by 
what laws, storms, famine, pestilence, &lc. 
destroy mankind ; nor why men are born in 
such places and times, and with such talents ; 
nor how it is that such and such trains of 
thought enter the mind. We therefore call 
these things accidental ; though all reasona- 
ble men believe there is no such thing as ac- 
cident. We see but a little way ; and it is 
only from seeing that the part of the course 
of nature which is known to us, is governed 
by general laws, that we conclude the whole 
to be so governed, though the laws of innu- 

9 



90 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

merable things are unknown to us. In like 
manner, that miraculous powers should be 
exerted at such occasions, for such reasons, 
before such persons, under such circumstan- 
ces, he. may have been also by general 
laws though unknown to us, as the laws of 
the things above instanced in nature are un- 
known to us. And there is no more reason 
to expect that every exigency as it arises 
should be provided for by these general laws, 
than that every exigency in nature should. 

4. In the next place, let us see the 
force of the common objection raised against 
the whole scheme of Christianity, as being 
what some are pleased to call a round-about 
way, a perplexed contrivance for the salva- 
tion of the world, as if God was reduced to 
the necessity of using a long series of intri- 
cate means to accomplish his ends. Now it 
is obvious, that in the course of nature God 
uses various means which we think tedious, 
to arrive at his ends. Indeed there is some- 
thing in this matter quite beyond our com- 
prehension : but the mystery is as great in 
nature as in Christianity. Perhaps many 
things which we call means, may be ends. 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 9l 

However, it is clear the whole natural world 
is a progressive system, in which the opera- 
tion of means takes up a great length of time. 
One state of things is a preparation for an- 
other, and that state the means of attaining to 
another succeeding one. Men are for pre- 
cipitating things ; but God in the natural 
world appears ever deliberate, reaching his 
ends by slow^ steps. The change of seasons, 
the ripening the fruits of the earth, the growth 
of a flower, the gradual advances of vegeta- 
ble and animal bodies, and the progress of 
knowledge in men with their growing facul- 
ties and powers, are instances of this. Thus 
in nature God operates as he does in Chris- 
tianity, by making one thing subservient to 
another, through a series of means which 
extends backward and forward beyond our 
utmost v'rew. Objections, therefore, against 
the whole plan of Christianity, as intricate 
and round-about, and perplexed, have no 
sort of force. 

Chap. V. This general objection having 
been answered, let us next consider the par- 



92 WiLSON»S ANALOGY. 

ticular one most urged, namely, that against 
the Mediation of Christ. 

1. Now, in the first place, the visible 
government of God in nature is carried on 
by the instrumentality and mediation of oth- 
ers. Every comfort of life comes to us in 
this way. God appoints men as instruments, 
that is, mediators of good or evil to us. So 
that there is no presumption from analogy 
against the general notion of a Pfediator. 

2. In the next place, it is supposable and 
credible that the punishments which God in- 
flicts as a moral governor, may be appointed 
to follow wickedness in the way of natural 
consequence ; in a like manner as a man 
trifling upon a precipice, in the way of natu- 
ral consequence falls down, and, without help, 
perishes. 

3. But it is most important to remark, that, 
in the course of natural Providence, provision 
is made that all the natural bad consequen- 
ces of men's actions should not always actu- 
ally follow. We might, indeed, presumptu- 
ously have thought that the world would have 
been so constituted as that there should not 
have been any such thing as misery or evil. 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 93 

But in fact we find that God permits it ; but 
that he has provided at the same time relief, 
and in many cases perfect remedies for it, 
even for that evil which would have justly 
ended in our ruin. If, indeed, all the con- 
sequences of bad conduct had always follow- 
ed, no one could have had a right to object ; 
no one can say whether such a more severe 
constitution of things might not yet have been 
really good. But that, instead of this, pro- 
vision is made by nature to remedy these 
consequences, may properly be called mercy 
or compassion in the original constitution of 
the world, as distinct from goodness in gene- 
ral. It is agreeable, then, to the whole analo- 
gy of nature, to hope that provision may have 
been made for remedying the natural conse- 
quences of vice in God's moral government, 
at least in some cases. There is a union of 
severity and indulgence in the course of na- 
ture ; there may possibly also be a union of 
justice and compassion in the scheme of reli- 
gion. 

4. Some will wonder at this being made 
a question of; for they neglect and despise 
all ideas of future punishment. But as we 
9* 



94 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

actually experience ill consequences from 
wickedness and folly here, so the analogy 
of the cases teaches us to apprehend worse 
evil consequences hereafter, from disorders 
committed by moral agents, presumptuously 
introducing confusion and misery into the 
kingdom of God, their Sovereign Creator. 
Nay, it is by no means intuitively certain 
whether these consequences could in the na- 
ture of the thing, be prevented, that is, con- 
sistently with the eternal rule of right. The 
utmost we could hope for is, that there would 
probably be some way in God's universal 
government for preventing the penal conse-- 
quences of vice. 

5. Further, it is not probable that any 
thing we could do of ourselves, would pre- 
vent these ill consequences. For sorrow and 
reformation will not of themselves prevent 
the natural consequences of our disorders 
here, and the assistance of others is often 
indispensable to such prevention. The like 
then may be the case under God's moral 
government. In fact, it is contrary to all 
our notions of government, as well as to the 
course of nature, to suppose that doing well 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 95 

for the future, should always prevent or re- 
medy the consequences annexed to disobedi- 
ence. And though men in the present day 
boast of the efficacy of repentance, yet the 
prevalence of propitiatory sacrifices over the 
heathen world, shows that the general sense 
of mankind is against the idea of repentance 
being sufficient to expiate guilt. 

6. In this darkness or light of nature, call 
it which you please, revelation comes in, 
teaches us our state of guilt, confirms every 
fear as to the future consequences of sin, de- 
clares that God's government will not pardon 
on mere repentance ; but that still his govern- 
^lent is compassionate, and that He has mer- 
fcifully provided that there should be an in- 
terposition to prevent the utter ruin of man. 
God so lovtd the world, that he gave his only 
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him 
should not perish : gave his Son in the same 
way of goodness to the world, as he affords 
10 particular persons the friendly assistance 
of their fellow-creatures; when, without it, 
their temporal ruin would be the certain con- 
sequence of their follies ; in the same way of 
goodness, I say, though in a transcendent and 



96 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

infinitely higher degree. And the Son 'of 
God loved us and gave himself for us, with a 
love which he compares to that of human 
friendship ; though in this case, all compari- 
sons must fall infinitely short of the thing in- 
tended to be illustrated by them. 

7. Now, if the constitution of things had 
been such that the whole creation must have 
perished, but for somewhat which God had 
appointed should take place to prevent that 
ruin, this supposition would not be inconsist- 
ent in any degree with perfect goodness and 
compassion, whatever men may object. 

8. Nor can men object to the Scriptures 
as representing mankind by this whole scheme 
as in a degraded state ; for it is not Chris- 
tianity which has put us in this state ; and 
all, even moralists, are compelled to acknow- 
ledge the extreme wickedness and misery 
which are in the world. And the crime of 
our first parents bringing us into a more dis- 
advantageous condition, is particularly agree- 
able to all analogy. 

9. The particular manner of Christ's me- 
diation is by his becoming what the Scrip- 
ture calls the Prophet of mankind, to declare 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 97 

the Divine will ;.the King, by founding and 
governing a church ; and the High Priest, 
by a propitiatory sacrifice ; which sacrifice, 
be it well noted, is not spoken of merely in 
allusion to the Mosaic sacrifices, but as the 
original and great sacrifice itself, to which 
the Mosaic were themselves only allusions, 
and of which they were types. The Scrip- 
tures declare in all sorts of ways an efiicacy 
in what Christ suffered for us, beyond mere 
example or instruction. 

10. Further, as we know not by what 
means future punishment would have been 
inflicted on men, nor all the reasons why its 
infliction would have been needful, if it had 
not been prevented by Christ's sacrifice ; it 
is most evident w^e are not judges, antece- 
dently to revelation, whether a Mediator was 
or was not necessary to prevent that punish- 
ment; and upon the supposition of a Media- 
tor, we are not judges beforehand of what it 
was fit to be assi^^ned to him to do, nor of 
the whole nature of his office. To object, 
therefore, to any particular parts of this me- 
diation, because we do not see the expedi- 



98 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

ency of them is absurd. And yet men com- 
monly do this. 

11. Again; if men object to the satisfac- 
tion of Christ, that it represents God as in- 
different whether he punishes the innocent or 
guilty, we answer, that they might equally 
object to the daily course of natural Provi- 
dence, in which innocent people are con- 
tinually forced to suffer for the faults of the 
guilty, and do suffer for them in various 
ways ; whereas Christ's sufferings were un- 
dertaken by him voluntarily. And though 
upon the whole, and finally, every one shall 
receive according to his deserts, yet during 
the progress, and in order to the completion, 
of this moral scheme, punishments endured 
by the innocent in some way instead of the 
guilty, that is, vicarious punishments, may, 
for aught we know, be fit and absolutely 
necessary. 

12. Besides, there is an apparent tendency 
in this method of our redemption by the sa- 
crifice of Christ, to vindicate the authority of 
God's law, and deter men from sin. 

13. Let not, then, such poor creatures as 
we are, object against an infinite scheme. 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 99 

that we do not see the usefulness and neces- 
sity of all its parts. The presumption of this 
kind of objections seems almost lost in the 
folly of them. 

14. It heightens the absurdity of these 
objections, that they are made against those 
parts of Christ's mediation which we are not 
actively concerned in. Now the whole anal- 
ogy of nature teaches us not to expect the 
like information concerning the Divine con- 
duct, as concerning our duty. The objec- 
tions are made, as we have seen, to God's 
appointment of a Mediator, and to the Me- 
diator's execution of his office ; not to what is 
required of man in consequence of this gra- 
cious dispensation, which is plain and obvi- 
ous, and which is all we need to know. 
Thus, in the natural world, it is almost an 
infinitely small part of natural Providence 
which men can understand, and yet they are 
sufficiently instructed for the common pur- 
poses of life. 

Chap. VJ. A principal objection against 
Christianity, further, is, that it is thought to 
rest on doubtful evidence, and that its benefits 



100 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

are not universal ; which, in other words, is 
as much as to say, that God would not have 
bestowed upon us any favour at all, unless 
in the degree which we imagine best, and 
that he could not bestow a favour upon any, 
unless he bestowed the same on all — an ob- 
jection which the whole analogy of nature 
contradicts. 

1. For how doubtful is the evidence on 
which men act in their most important con- 
cerns in this world — how difficult to balance 
nice probabilities, to make due allowances 
for accidents and disappointments, to see on 
which side the reasons preponderate. How 
often do strong objections lie against their 
schemes, objections which cannot be removed 
or answered, but yet which seem overbalanc- 
ed by reasons on the other side. And how 
much are men deceived at last by the false- 
hood of others, by the false appearances of 
things, and the strong bias from within them- 
selves to favour the deceit. And as to revela- 
tion not being universal, we see the Author 
of nature perpetually bestowing those gifts of 
health, prudence, knowledge, riches, upon 
some, which he does not on others. Yet^ 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 101 

notwithstanding these uncertainties and varie- 
ties, God does exercise a natural government 
over the world and there is such a thing as a 
prudent and imprudent course of conduct. 

2. There have been different degrees of 
evidence to Jews and Christians. The first 
Christians had a higher evidence of miracles 
than we, and a stronger presumption in fa- 
vour of Christianity from the lives of Chris- 
tians : and we or future ages may have a 
higher evidence of the fulfilment of prophecy. 
And the Heathens, Mahommedans, Papists 
and Protestants, have now different degrees 
of evidence of natural and revealed religion, 
from the faintest glimmering of probability, 
to the clear light of truth and conviction : but 
all this most obviously resembles the constant 
order of Providence as to our temporal af- 
fairs. And we are to remember, that each 
one will be judged at last, by what he hath, 
and not by what he hath not, so that there is 
no shadow of injustice in this constitution of 
things, though what is the particular reason 
of it, we are altogether in the dark about. 
We know but little even of our own cases ; 
scarcely any thing more than is just neces- 
10 



102 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

sary for practice. We are in the greatest 
ignorance as to what would satisfy our curi- 
osity. We have only light to teach us our 
duty, and encourage us in the discharge of it. 

3. Besides, if revelation were universal, 
men's different understandings, educations, 
tempers, bodily constitutions, lengths of lives, 
external advantages, would soon make their 
situation perhaps as widely different as it is 
at present. 

4. But we may observe more particular- 
ly, that the evidence of religion not appear- 
ing certain, may be the especial trial of some 
men's characters and state of mind. Men 
may be as much in a state of probation with 
regard to the exercise of their understanding 
on the evidence of religion, as they are with 
regard to their conduct. The same inward 
principle which leads men to obey religion 
when convinced of its truth, would lead them 
to examine it, when they were first presented 
with its evidences. Negligence about such 
a serious matter as religion, is as criminal 
before distinct conviction, as careless prac- 
tice is after. That religious evidence, then, 
is not forced upon men, nor intuitively true. 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 103 

but left to be collected by a heedful attention 
to premises, may as much constitute religious 
probation as any thing else. 

5. Again, even if Christianity should be 
supposed to be extremely doubtful to some 
persons, yet it puts them in a state of proba- 
tion as to character. For if Christianity be 
once supposed by them to be possible, this 
demands religious suspense, moral resolu- 
tion, self-government, inquiry, abstinence from 
v^hat would be impediments, readiness to re- 
ceive fresh light, care of what use they make 
of their influence and example upon others. 
For doubting is not a positive argument 
against rehgion, but for it ; a doubt presup- 
poses a lower degree of evidence, just as 
much as belief does a higher. And in pro- 
portion to the corruption of the heart, men 
acknowledge no evidence, however real, if it 
be not overbearing. 

6. The difficulties which are said to be 
found in the evidence of Christianity, is no 
more a ground of complaint, than difficulties 
from external temptation as to the practice 
of it. Such speculative difficulties may, to 
persons of a deep sense, and reflecting minds, 



104 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

and who have small temptations to gross out- 
ward sins, constitute the principal part of 
their trial. For we see, in the things of this 
world, that the chief trial of some men is not 
so much ,the doing what is right when it is 
known, as the attention, suspense, care, the 
being on their guard against false appearan- 
ces, the weighing of contrary reasons, and 
informing themselves of what is really pru- 
dent. 

7. In these remarks, we have taken it for 
granted that men are not neglecting the sub- 
ject of religion altogether, nor entertaining 
prejudices against it. For if they never ex- 
amine it in earnest, if they wish it not to be 
true, if they attend more to objections than 
to evidence, if they consider things with levi- 
ty, if they indulge in ridicule, and put human 
errors in the place of Divine truth, all this 
will hinder men from seeing evidence, just as 
a like turn of mind hinders theni from weigh- 
ing evidence in their temporal capacities. 
And possibly the evidence of Christianity 
was left, so as that those who are desirous of 
evading moral obligation should not see it, 
whilst fair and candid persons should. 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 105 

8. Further, the evidences of Christianity, 
as they are, may be sufficiently understood 
by common men, if they will only pay the 
same sort of attention to religion which they 
pay to their temporal affairs. But if men 
will handle objections which they have pick- 
ed up, and discuss them without the neces- 
sary preparation of general knowledge, they 
must remain in ignorance or doubt, just as 
men who neglect the means of information in 
common life do. 

9. But, perhaps, it will be said, that a 
prince w^ould take care to give directions to 
a servant which would be impossible to be 
misunderstood or disputed. To this we an- 
swer, that it is certain we cannot argue thus 
as to God, because in point of fact he does 
not afford us such information as to our tem- 
poral affairs, as a matter of course, without 
care of our own. And if a prince wished 
not merely to have certain acts done, but 
also to prove the loyalty and obedience of 
his servant, he might not always give his 
directions in the plainest possible manner. 

On the whole, the analogy of nature re- 
futes all objections against Christianity as 
10^ 



106 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

resting upon doubtful evidence, and as not 
universal. 

Chap. VIL The objections against the 
particular scheme of Christianity being re- 
moved, it remains that we consider what the 
analogy of nature suggests as to the positive 
evidence for it, and as to the objections raised 
against that evidence. 

Now, the evidence of Christianity em- 
braces a long series of things, reaching from 
the beginning of the world to the present 
time, of great variety and compass, and mak- 
ing up one argument, the conviction arising 
from which is like what we call effect in 
architecture, a result from a great number of 
things, so and so disposed, and taken into 
one view ; and this is the kind of proof on 
which we determine questions of difficulty, 
in our most important affairs in this world. 

Let us then, 1st, consider the direct proof 
of Christianity, from Miracles and Prophecy ; 
and then, 2d, the general argument arising 
from this proof, together with many collateral 
things, as making up one argument. 

I. — 1. The Scriptures of the Old and 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. ] 07 

New Testament afford us the same evidence 
of the miracles wrought in attestation of reve- 
lation, as it does of its ordinary history ; for 
these miracles are not foisted into it, but 
form a part of it, and are related in the same 
unadorned manner as the rest of the narra- 
tive, and stand on the same footing of histori- 
cal evidence. And some parts of Scripture, 
containing the account of miracles, are quo- 
ted as genuine from the very age in which 
they were said to have been written. And 
the establishment of the Jewish and Chris- 
tian religions are just what might have been 
expected, if such miracles were wrought, and 
can be accounted for on no other supposition. 
The Scripture history, then, must be con- 
sidered as genuine, unless something positive 
can be alleged to invalidate it. Mere guesses 
can prove nothing against historical evidence. 
Further, the Epistles of St. Paul, being 
addressed to particular churches, carry in 
them a greater evidence of being genuine, 
than if they had been merely narratives ad- 
dressed to the world at large. And the first 
epistle to the Corinthians is quoted by Cle- 
mens Romanus, a contemporary, in a letter 



108 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

to the same church. And St. Paul men- 
tions, in this epistle, the miraculous gifts, as 
possessed by the very Christians to whom he 
wrote; and he mentions them incidentally, 
and in order to depreciate them, and to re- 
prove the abuse of them. He speaks of 
them in the manner any one would speak of 
a thing familiar, and known to the persons 
he is writing to. Against this evidence, gene- 
ral doubts have no force, because any fact 
of such a kind, and of such antiquity, may 
have general doubts thrown out concerning 
it, from the very nature of human affairs and 
human testimony. | 

Again, Christianity presented itself to man- 
kind at first, and was received, on the footing 
of these miracles at the time when they were 
wrought ; which is the case with no other re- 
ligion. Mahommedanism was propagated by 
the sword ; and Popish and Mahommedan 
miracles, said to be wrought after parties were ' 
formed, and when power and political inter- ■ 
ests supported them, are easily accounted for. 

Once more, the reception of such a doc- 
trine as Christianity, demanding such a total 
change of life, by such vast numbers, can 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 109 

only be accounted for on the supposition of 
their belief in the Christian miracles, which 
ihey were fully competent to judge of, as mat- 
ters of fact. For, credulous as mankind are, 
they are suspicious, and backward to believe 
and act against their prejudices, passions, and 
temporal interest ; and education, prejudice, 
power, habits, laws, authority, were all then 
against Christianity. 

Enthusiasm, indeed, may give rise to opin- 
ions, and to zeal in support of them. But 
there is a wide difference between opinions 
and facts ; and testimony, though no proof of 
enthusiastic opinions, yet is allowed, in all 
cases, to be a proof of facts ; and there is no 
appearance of enthusiasm in the conduct of 
the apostles and first Christians, but quite 
the contrary. And if great numbers of men 
of plain understandings affirm, that they saw 
and heard such and such things with their 
eyes and ears, such testimony is the strongest 
evidence we can have for any matter of fact. 
The mere vague charge of enthusiasm, in 
such a case, is frivolous. 

However, as religion is supposed to be 
peculiarly liable to enthusiasm, let us observe 



110 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

that prejudices, romance, afFectation, humour, 
party spkit, custom, little competitions, &£c. 
influence men in common matters, just as en- 
thusiasm may do ; and yet, human testimony, 
common matters, is believed and acted on 
notwithstanding. The fact is, mankind have 
undoubtedly a capacity of distinguishing truth 
and falsehood in common matters, and have 
a regard to truth in what they say, except 
when prejudiced, biassed, or deceived. And, 
therefore, human testimony remains a natural 
ground of assent, and this assent, a natural 
principle of action, notwithstanding all the 
error* and dishonesty which are in the world. 
People, therefore, do not know what they 
say, when they pretend that enthusiasm de- 
stroys the evidence for the truth of Chris- 
tianity. It never can be sufficient to over- 
throw direct historical testimony, indolently 
to say, Men are so apt to deceive and be 
deceived in religion, that we know not what 
to believe. All analogy shows, that men do 
not thus act in their temporal affairs. 

Besides, the vast importance of Christiani- 
ty, and the strong obligations to veracity 
which it enjoins, strengthen the presumption, 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. Ill 

that the Apostles could not either intend to 
deceive others, or be deceived themselves. 
The proof from miracles, therefore, remains 
untouched ; for there is no testimony v^^hat- 
ever contradicting it, and strong historical 
testimony in its favour. 

2. As to the evidence from prophecy, a 
few remarks may be made. If some parts 
of it are obscure, this does not lessen the 
proof of foresight from the fulfilment of those 
parts which are clear. Thus, in a writing, 
if part of it were in cyphers, and other parts 
in words at length, and if, in the parts under- 
stood, many known facts were related ; no 
one would imagine, that if he could make 
out the part in cypher, he should find that 
the writer did not know the plain facts which 
he had related. 

Again, if, from the deficiency in civil his- 
tory, we cannot make out the minute fulfil- 
ment of every prophecy, yet a very strong 
proof of foresight may arise from a general 
completion of prophecy, as illustrated by civil 
history ; perhaps as much proof as God in- 
tended should be afforded by such prophecy. 

Further, if a long series of prophecy is 



112 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

naturally applicable to such and such events, 
this is, of itself, a presumptive proof that it 
was intended of them. Thus, in mythologi- 
cal and satirical writings, we conclude that 
we understand their concealed meaning, in 
proportion to the number of particulars clear- 
ly applicable in such and such a manner. 

Add to this, that the Jews applied the pro- 
phecies of Christ to the Messiah before his 
coming, in much the same manner as Chris- 
tians do now ; and the primitive Christians, 
those of the state of the church, and of the 
world, in the last ages, in much the same 
way as we do now, and as the event seems 
to verify. This is important. 

Nor is it any argument against all this, if 
we suppose the prophets to have applied 
some of those prophecies, at the time, to 
other immediate events ; for they were only 
amanuenses, not the original authors of their 
predictions; that is, they merely wrote as 
they were moved by the Holy Ghost. 

Thus, the argument from prophecy has 
great weight, though we should not be able 
to satisfy ourselves on every point. It is, in- 
deed, very easy to determine at once with a 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 113 

decisive air, and say, There is nothing in it : 
and this suits the presumption and wilfulness 
of men. But the true proof of modesty and 
fairness is to say, There is certainly some- 
thing in it ; and it shall have influence upon 
us in proportion to its apparent reality and 
weight. And this all analogy suggests to be 
the reasonable course. 

II. Let us now consider this direct evi- 
dence of miracles and prophecy, in connex- 
ion with those circumstantial and collateral 
proofs, which go to make up one argument. 
For thus, in daily life, we judge of things by 
evidence arising from various coincidences, 
which confirm each other. And though each 
of these things, separately, may have little 
weight, yet when they are considered to- 
gether, and united in one view, they may 
have the greatest. The proof of revelation 
is not some direct and express things only, 
but a great variety of circumstantial things 
also, in the result of which the proper force 
of the evidence consists. 

1. Now revelation may be considered as 
wholly historical ; for prophecy is anticipated 
history, and doctrines, and precepts, may be 
11 



114 WILSOH'S ANALOGY. 

Viewed as matters of fact. The general de- 
sign of this history, is to give us an account 
of the worldj in this one single view, as God's 
world ; and by this it is essentially distin- 
guished from all other books. After the his- 
tory of the creation, it gives an account of 
the world in this view^ during that state of 
apostacy and wickedness which it represents 
mankind to lie in* It considers the common 
afFairs of men, as a scene of distraction, and 
only refers to them as they affect religion. 

2. This narrative^ comprehending a pe- 
riod of nearly 6000 years, gives the utmost 
scope for objections against it ; from reason, 
common history, or any inconsistency in its 
parts. And undoubtedly it mustj and would 
have been confuted, if it had been false, as 
all false religions have been over and over 
again ; and, therefore, that it has not been 
confuted, nor pretended to have been con- 
futed, during the lapse of so many ages, im- 
plies a positive argument that it is true. 

3. Further, the Scriptures contain a par- 
ticular history of the Jews, God's peculiar 
people — the promises of the Messiah, as a 
Saviour for Jews and Gentiles — the narra- 



WII.60N»S ANALOGY. 115 

tive of the birth of this Messiah, at the time 
foretold — and of the propagation of his reli- 
gion — and of his being rejected by the Jew- 
ish people. 

4. Let us now suppose a person to read 
the Scriptures thoroughlyj and remark these 
and other historical facts contained in them, 
without knowing whether it was a real reve- 
lation from Heaven or not. Then let this 
person be told to look out into the world, 
and observe if the state of things seem at all 
to correspond with these facts* Let him be 
informed how much of natural religion was 
owing to this book, and how many pations 
received it as divine, and under what circum- 
dances* Then let bim consider of what im- 
portance religion is to mankind ; and be 
would see that this supposed revelation hav- 
ing had this influence, and having been re- 
ceived in the world as it was, is the most 
conspicuous event in the history of mankind j 
and that a book thus recommended demands 
his attention as by a voice from Heaven. 

5. Let such a person be next informed, 
that the history and chronology of this book 
Is not contradicted, but confirmed, by pro- 



116 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

fane history — that the narrative contains all 
the internal marks of truth and simplicity — 
and that the New Testament in particular, is 
con6rmed in all its chief facts by heathen 
authors — and that this credibility of the com- 
mon history in Scripture, gives some credi- 
bility to its miracles, as they are interwoven 
and make up one narrative. 

6. Let him next be told that there was 
such a nation as the Jews, whose existence 
depended on the law said, in this book, to 
have been given them by Moses — that at the 
time when the prophecies had led this peo- 
ple to expect the Messiah, one claiming to 
be the Messiah appeared, and was rejected 
by them, as foretold — that the religion was 
received by the Gentiles on the authority of 
miracles, and that the Jews remain as a sepa- 
rate people to this present day, which seems 
to look forward to other prophecies of their 
future conversion. 

Let him, I say, first gather his knowledge 
entirely from Scripture, and then compare 
it fact by fact with the corresponding history 
of the world ; and the joint view niust appear 
to hira most surprising. 



WIJ^SOJ^'S ANALOGY. 117 

7. All these points make up an argument 
from their united, not separated, force. Then 
add to these, the appearances of the world, 
as answering still to the prophetic history, 
and numerous other particulars, and the re- 
sult of the whole must be allowed to be of 
the greatest weight. 

8. Then we should remember, that a 
mistake in rejecting Christianity, is much 
more dangerous in its consequences, than one 
in favour of it ; and that in temporal affairs, 
we always consider which side is most safe. 

9. We should also bear in mind that the 
truth of Christianity is proved, like that of 
any common event, not only if any one of 
the points adduced clearly imply it, but if the 
whole taken together do, though no one 
singly should. No one who is serious, can 
possibly think these things to be of little 
weight, if he considers the importance of col- 
lateral things, and less circumstances, in the 
evidence of probability, as distinguished in 
nature from the evidence of demonstration. 

10. It should be just observed, that the 
nature of this evidence gives a great advan- 
tage to persons who choose to attack Chris- 

11^ 



118 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

tianity in a short, lively manner in conversa- 
tion ; because an objection against. particular 
points is easily shown, whereas the united 
force of the whole argument, requires much 
time and thought. 

Chap. VIII. Lastly, some persons may 
object to this whole argument, from the anal- 
ogy of nature, and say, it is a poor thing to 
solve difficulties in revelation, by asserting 
that there are like difficulties in natural reli- 
gion. 

1 . Now men's wanting to have all diffi- 
culties cleared in revelation, is the same for 
any thing they know, as requiring to com- 
prehend the divine nature. And it is no 
otherwise a poor thing to argue from natural 
to revealed religion, than it is a poor thing 
for a physician to have so little knowledge in 
the cure of diseases ; which is yet much bet- 
ter than having no skill at all. Indeed, the 
epithet poor^ may be applied as properly to 
the whole of human life. 

Further, it is unreasonable for men to 
urge objections against Christianity which are 
of equal weight, against natural religion, 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. - H9 

whilst they profess to admit the truth of natu- 
ral religion. This is unfair dealing. 

2. But again, religion is a practical thing, 
and if men have the like reason to beheve 
the truth of it, as they have in what they do 
in their temporal affairs, then they are so 
much the more bound to act on it, as the 
interest is infinitely greater. This is plainly 
unanswerable. If they believe that taking 
care of their temporal interest will be for 
their advantage, then there is equal reason 
for believing, that obeying Christianity, and 
taking care of their future interests, will be 
for their advantage. It is according to the 
conduct and character of the Author of na- 
ture, that we should act upon such probable 
evidence. All analogy clearly shows this. 

3. The design of the analogical argument 
is not to vindicate the character of God, but 
to show the obligations of men. Nor is it 
necessary to prove the reasonableness of every 
thing enjoined us in Christianity ; the rea- 
sonableness of the practice of our duty is 
enough. And though analogy does not pre- 
tend immediately to answer objections against 
the wisdom and goodness of the doctrines 



120 WIl4eON'S AfJAhOQY. 

and precepts of Christianity, yet it does this 
indirectly, by showing that the things object- 
ed against are not incredible. 

4. It is readily acknowledged, that this 
treatise is not what is called satisfactory — 
very far from it — but then no natural institu- 
tion of life would appear so, if reduced into a 
system together with its proof. The unsatis- 
factory evidence with which we put up in 
common life, is not to be expressed. Yet 
men do not throw away life on account of 
this doubtfulness. And religion pre-supposes, 
in all who would embrace it, some integrity 
and honesty, a willingness to follow the pro- 
bability of things ; just as speaking to a man 
supposes him to understand the language in 
which you speak. The question then is, not 
whether the evidence of Christianity be what 
is called satisfactory, but whether it be suffi- 
cient to prove and discipline that virtue and 
integrity of mind, which it pre-supposes, | 
though it be not sufficient to remove every 
objection, or gratify curiosity. 

5, As to the little influence which this 
whole argument may actually have on men, 
which is made an objection to it, the true 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 121 

question is, not how men will actually be- 
have, but how they ought to behave. It is 
no objection to this argument, that it may 
fail of convincing men. Religion as a pro- 
bation, has its end on all to whom it has 
been proposed with sufficient evidence, let 
them behave as they will concerning it. 

On the whole, the proof of Christianity is 
greatly strengthened by these considerations 
from analogy ; though it is easy to cavil at 
them, and to object that they are not demon- 
strative, which it was never pretended they 
were, nor could be. They are of the nature 
of probable arguments ; but then they are so 
forcible and just, that it is impossible to an- 
swer them, or evade them fairly. 

Conclusion. In tbis treatise we have 
considered Christianity as a matter of fact 
merely, and have argued with unbelievers on 
their own ground. We have, therefore, nei- 
ther argued from the hberly of man, nor 
from the moral fitness of things ; both of 
which would have strengthened my argu- 
ment, and both of which we believe to be 
true. But we have taken up things on the 



123 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

lowest ground, and given every advantage 
we could to our adversary. 

Id the first part, a view has been given of 
natural religion, and the chief difficulties con- 
cerning this have been answered by the anal- 
ogy of God's government of the universe. 
Thus, the objections against a future life of 
mora) and righteous retribution, wherein God 
will reward or punish men according to their 
behaviour here, and for which this world is 
a state of discipline and preparation, hava 
been silenced, or refuted ; and the general 
notioa of religion has been shown to be 
throughout agreeable to the obvious course 
of things in this present world. 

For^ indeed, natural religion carries in it 
much evidence of truth, on barely being pro- 
posed to our thoughts. To an unprejudiced 
mind, tan thousand thousand instances of de- 
sign, cannot but prove a Designer. And it 
h intuitively manifest, that creatures ought to 
live under a dutiful sense of their Maker j 
end that justice and charity must be his laws, 
to creatures such as we are, whom he has 
formed social, and placed in society. The 
neglect, therefore^ of men towards it, must 



WILSON^'S ANALOGY. 123 

arise from objections against all religion gene- 
rally ; which objections have been met in the 
first part of this work. Natural religion has 
been there cleared of its difficulties, and its 
credibility shown. 

In the second part, the particular scheme 
of Christianity has been considered ; and the 
objections against its importance, against the 
miracles on which its evidence rests, and 
against its provision of a Mediator, have 
been proved to be invalid. The difficulties 
raised concerning it, because it is not univer- 
sal, and because its evidence is not overbear- 
ing, have also been removed. Some obser- 
vations have, lastly, been made on the objec- 
tions to the special evidences of Christianity ; 
as consisting of miracles, prophecies, and a 
great many other collateral circumstances, 
united in one argument. 

Thus we have endeavoured to strengthen 
the evidences of Christianity to those who 
believe it to be true ; and to show its proba- 
bility to those who do not believe it. The 
treatise is especially addressed to those who 
imagine that the evidences of natural and 
revealed religion, if true, would have been 



124 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

Stronger than they are, or irresistible ; and 
who think that doubting about Christianity, is 
in a manner the same thing as being certain 
against it. If these persons are not willing to 
weigh seriously the force of the analogical 
arguments we have produced, but will still go 
on to disregard and vilify Christianity, there is 
no reason to think they would alter their beha- 
viour to any purpose ; though there were a 
demonstration, instead of what there is, a high 
probability, and moral certainty of its truth. 

Such are the chief steps in the reasoning 
of Bishop Butler, in this great work. 

CONNEXION OF BISHOP BUTLER's ARGUMENT WITH 
OTHER BRANCHES OF EVIDENCE, THEO- 
RETICAL AND PRACTICAL. 

Having thus given a general draught of 
the main argument, as well as of the particu- 
lar reasoning of the Analogy, we come to the 
second general division of this Essay, and 
offer, as was proposed, some observations on 

THE CONNEXION OF THIS ARGUJVIENT WITH 
THE OTHER BRANCHES OF THE CHRISTIAN 
EVIDENCE, AND ON ITS PECULIAR USE AND 
IMPORTANCE ; AND ALSO ON OUR AUTHOr's 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 125 

VIEW OF PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY, AND ON 
THE ADAPTATION OF HIS ARGUMENT TO THE 
CHRISTIAN RELIGION IN ALL ITS EXTEN^. 

1. We begin with the connexion of the 
Analogical argument with the other branches 
of the Christian evidence, and on its peculiar 
use and importance. For the argument from 
analogy does not stand alone. It is rather 
the connpletion, and, as it were, the crown of 
all the other evidences for the truth of Chris- 
tianity. It comes in to remove objection!^ 
after the usual proofs have been admitted. 
For the External, the Internal, and what 
I may call the Analogical evidences of 
Christianity, are three distinct divisions of one 
great argument. The external evidences 
are those which should be first studied. In- 
deed they are the only ones that can be con- 
sidered in the first instance as essential ; be- 
cause they undertake to show the credentials 
of the messenger who professes to come with 
a revelation from heaven. Christianity claims 
a divine origin. I have therefore a right, in- 
deed I am bound, soberly and impartially to 
inquire what proofs she brings of this high 
claim. And when she refers me to the holy 
12 



126 WILSON'S Analogy. 

Scriptures as containing all her records^ I 
have a right to ask what evidence there is of the 
genuineness and authenticity of these books^ 
and what footing they place the religion 
upon, which they wish to inculcate on man- 
kind. The answer to all these questions is 
found in what we call the External Eviden- 
ces of Christianity. These show the acknow- 
ledged facts on which the religion rests. 
They prove [that the books were written by 
the persons whose names tliey bear, and da 
contain a true and credible history. They 
prove that the revelation itself was founded 
on unequivocal and numerous miracles; that 
it was accompanied (as it is accompanied 
still) with the distinct fulfilment of an amaz- 
ing scheme of prophecy, embracing all the 
chief events of the world j and that it was pro- 
pagated in the face of opposition and diflSculty 
with a triumphant success, which nothing but 
the hand of God could have effected. These 
evidences also show the positive good effects 
produced by this heavenly doctrine, and 
which are still being produced, in the melior- 
ation of society and the advancement of hu- 
man happiness and virtue in all the nations 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 127 

where it has been receiv^ed. We have no 
right to go further than this in the first place. 
The moment the messenger is sufficiently 
proved to have didne credentials, we have 
but one duty left, that of receiving and obey- 
ing his message, that of reading and medita- 
ting on the revelation itself, in order to con- 
form ourselves to it with devout and cheerful 
submission. We have no right at all to ex- 
amine the nature of the discoveries^ or doc- 
trines, or precepts of Christianity, with the 
view of determining whether they seem to us 
becoming the wisdom of God, and agreeable 
to the reason of man» It i$ proved that the 
revelation is from heaven. This is enough. 
The infinitely glorious Creator and Sovereign 
of the universe has full power to do what be 
will with his own, and to lay down laws for 
his creatures. We have no business, strictly 
speaking, with the contents and tenor of these 
laws, except to understand them and obey 
them. 

Great mischief has been done to the Chris- 
tian cause by taking another method. Men 
have allowed themselves to be entangled with 
discussions on the possibility and credibility 



128 WILSON»S ANALOGY. 

of a revelation being given to man, on the 
nature and tendency of the Christian doc- 
trine, on the reasonableness of its particular 
injunctions — questions every one of them out 
of place in examining the evidence of a divine 
religion. Let it fairly be made out to come 
from God, and it is enough. More than this 
is injurious. We are sure, indeed, that the 
contents of it must be most worthy of its per- 
fect Author ; but we are no adequate judges 
of what is worthy or what is not worthy of 
an Infinite being. We have no right to call 
the Almighty Creator to the bar of our feeble 
reason, and suspend obedience to his com- 
mands on the determination whether those 
commands are in our opinion just and good 
or not. To receive a revelation on the 
ground of its proper credentials, and then to 
trace out with reverence the wisdom and 
goodness of its contents, is one thing ; but to 
sit in judgment on those contents previously 
to an examination of its credentials, and in 
order to decide whether we shall receive the 
professed revelation or not, is quite another. 
We are competent to understand the simple 
and commanding language of the Almighty, 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 129 

attesting by miracles and prophecy, and the 
extraordinary propagation of the gospel and 
its visible good effects on mankind, the truth 
of a supernatural revelation ; and yet are no 
competent judges whatever of the particular 
things the Almighty may see fit to communi- 
cate in that revelation. Evidences are level 
to a candid and fair understanding ; divine 
doctrines may not be so. Evidences are ad- 
dressed to man's reason, and warrant the 
modest exercise of it ; doctrines are address- 
ed to faith, and demand not discussion, but 
obedience. 

The danger of acting in the way which I 
am now venturing to condemn, is greater, 
because the door being once opened to such 
reasoning, it is quite certain that the minds 
of men will too often employ it amiss. The 
infidel is the person just the least capable to 
act aright in such a case. The pious well- 
trained judgment of a sincere Christian, might 
indeed form a better estimate of the internal 
character of a revelation from heaven : but 
the unsubdued mind of an unbeliever^ can 
only come to a wrong decision upon it. He 
fvants all the preparation necessary. 
12^ 



130 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

But although the External proofs of Chris- 
tianity are thus all that, in th^ first examina- 
tion, is required, yet the internal eviden- 
ces may afterwards be profitably, most pro- 
fitably studied. Christianity shrinks from no 
scrutiny. She courts the light. When the 
outward credentials of the heavenly messen- 
ger have once been investigated, and the 
message been received on this its proper foot- 
ing ; then if it be asked, whether the contents 
of the revelation seem to confirm the proof 
of its divine original ; whether the sincere 
believer will find them adapted to his wants ; 
whether the morals inculcated, the end pro- 
posed, the means enjoined are agreeable to 
man's best reason and the dictates of an 
enlightened understanding and conscience, 
whether the character of Christ be worthy of 
his religion, whether the influence of grace, 
said to accompany Christianity, may be ob- 
tained by prayer, whether the lives and deaths 
of Christians as compared with those of pro- 
fessed Infidels, illustrate the excellency of 
theif faith ; w^hether, in short, the promises 
and blessings of Christianity are verified in 
those who make a trial of them, by submit- 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 131 

ting to the means appointed for their attain- 
ment : when such questions are put with 
candour, by those who have embraced Chris- 
tianity, we answer them by referring to the 
Internal evidences of Revelation. These In- 
ternal evidences are now our appropriate 
study. They show us the adaptation of the 
religion to the situation and wants of man, 
the purity and sublimity of its doctrines and 
precepts, the character of its founder, the 
sanctifying and consoling effect of the influ- 
ence which accompanies it, the holy lives 
and happy deaths of its genuine followers, 
and the trial which every one may make of 
its promises and blessings, by fulfilling the 
terms on which they are proposed. Each of 
these topics admits of large illustration. The 
whole of the Internal evidences form an argu- 
ment in favour of Christianity, as complete 
and satisfactory in its particular province, as 
the whole of the External. Indeed, they are, 
in some respects, more persuasive, though 
they come after them and are secondary to 
them. The External evidences enforce con- 
viction, the Internal induce to love. The 
External bring to light the potent remedy, 



132 WIL80N*S ANALOGY. 

the Internal apply it to the sufferer, and pro- 
duce the actual cure. The first require an 
exercise of the understanding on plain facta 
stated, the second the submission of the af- 
fections to a benefit conferred. By the one 
we know religion to be true, by the other we 
feel it to be good. The External evidences 
awaken attention to a new doctrine, the In- 
ternal attract the heart to an incalculable 
blessing. 

Accordingly, no class of persons is ex- 
cluded from that conviction of the truth of 
Christianity which springs from a perception 
of its effects in themselves and others. The 
External evidences indeed are simple as they 
are majestic ; but to the unpractised and un- 
educated mind, they necessarily lose much 
of their force. The great body of mankind 
must be indebted to their instructors in a 
large measure, for their faith in the historical 
evidences of religion ; but they can feel it in 
its sacred fruits as keenly, and perhaps even 
more keenly, than any other description of 
persons. They are incapable of following a 
train of reasoning, or of judging of distant 
and remote facts ; but they are quite capable 



WILSOJN'S ANALOGY. 133 

of perceiving the blessedness of obeying Chris- 
tianity, and of relying on its promises. Thus 
a source of faith is opened to them, abundant 
in proportion as they advance in piety and 
virtue. And though, as vt^e have already 
observed, the unbeliever has no right to sit 
in judgment on the internal character of Chris- 
tianity, but should, and must, in all reason, 
be contented at first with the proper external 
evidences that it really comes from God ; yet 
when he has once received the Christian 
doctrine aright, and has begun to be mould- 
ed into its form, and take its impression, he 
will discover to his surprise new traces of a 
divine hand daily in all its parts, he will feel 
that it is salutary in all its doctrines and in 
all its precepts, in all its bearings and all its 
tendencies, in all its discoveries and declara- 
tions, in all its effects and fruits. Like the 
light of the sun, it will speak its author and 
source. The confirmation wliich the faith of 
the sincere believer thus receives is indescri- 
bable. He has now entered the temple, of 
which he had before surveyed, from without, 
the proportions and magnificence. He has 
now partaken of the feast, of which he had 



134 WILeON»B ANALOGY. 

before heard the tidings and listened to the 
invitation. He has now experienced the 
skill and tenderness of the Physician, of 
whose fame and powers he had before been 
convinced only by testimony. He has now 
shared the unspeakable gift which had before 
been offered to him. He was well persuad- 
ed, on first embracing Christianity on its due 
external authority, that every thing taught by 
it would be found most agreeable to the attri- 
butes and glory of its divine author. But he 
has now a conviction resulting from the be- 
nefits conferred, of a kind higher in its de- 
gree, and more consoling in its effects, than 
any external proof could communicate, and 
which, though incapable of being known, 
from the nature of the case, previously to ex- 
perience, yet when once known, sways and 
bears away the heart. 

The two branches of evidence thus con- 
curring to one result, the External proving 
the truth of the messenger^ and the Internal 
confirming afterwards that truth by an expe- 
rience of the excellency and suitableness of 
the message itself, the Christian believer has 



WILSON«B ANALOGY. 135 

a continually growing conviction of the firm 
grounds of his faith. 

He is now prepared for considering, to the 
best advantage, the third branch of the evi- 
dences in favour of Christianity — that arising 

from THE ANALOGY BETWEEN THIS RELI- 
GION, AND THE CONSTITUTION AND COURSE 

OF NATURE. This brings us to the imme- 
diate subject of Butler's treatise, of which we 
have already given a review. We have no 
right, indeed, (for the idea is too important 
not to be repeated,) to call for this species of 
proof, any more than we have a right to call, 
in the first instance, for an examination of 
the internal character of Christianity, or ra- 
ther to call for it at all. All we have any 
fair right to ask for, is the credentials of the 
ambassador who professes to come to us in 
the name of our absent, though ever-present. 
Sovereign and Lord. It is perfectly true, 
that the analogy of nature, as formed by the 
same hand, will have traces of the same sys- 
tem and scheme of Christianity, just as it is 
true, that a revelation from heaven will pos- 
sess every internal mark of holiness and good- 
ness and truth ; but we have no right to stop, 



136 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

and pretend to follow out all these matters^ 
before we receive the Christian doctrine as 
divine. Christianity does not submit to plead 
at such a bar. The capacity of receiving 
advantage from these auxiliary evidences, de- 
pends on our first admitting, on the plain 
grounds of its miracles, and prophecies, and 
propagation, and mighty effects, the truth of 
the revelation by which these additional 
proofs are to be created and communicated, 
and without which they cannot be employed 
to any purpose. 

Still, after we have sincerely embraced the 
gospel, we may humbly inquire, whether the 
difficulties which are raised against it by un- 
believers, or which occur to our own minds, 
may be relieved by an appeal to the works 
of God in nature, and His order and govern- 
ment therein. This is the argument from 
Analogy, which rises still a step above the 
two preceding branches of the subject, not as 
in itself necessary to the first reception of 
Christianity, but as furnishing the subsequent 
confirmation of ix. and removing scruples and 
objections arising from the ignorance and pre- 
sumption of man. It is, indeed, a glorious 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 137 

thing thus to discern the harmony between 
Christianity, the greatest of the Almighty's 
works, and all the other known productions 
of the same divine Architect. To see that 
the natural and moral government of God are 
parts of one stupendous whole, sums up, and 
finishes, and absolves the subject. Nothing 
more can be said. All is, what we might be 
sure it would be, complete and adequate. 
The force of External evidences is to com- 
pel assent ; the effect of the Internal to pro- 
duce love ; the chief efficacy of the Analogi- 
cal to silence objections. By the first, a 
message is proved to come from heaven ; by 
the second, the salutary effects of this mes- 
sage are felt and understood ; by the third, 
it is shown to be, in itself, most agreeable to 
all the known dispensations of the divine Au- 
thor. The first is the proper evidence which 
such a case indispensably demands ; the next 
confirms, by actual experience, this satisfac- 
tory ground of belief 5 the last excludes all 
contradictory assertions, and creates a silence 
and repose of mind, when objections are 
urged by others, or arise in our own thoughts. 
External evidences, by their simple majesty, 
13 



138 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

address the reason of mankind, and over- 
whelm objections and surmises ; Internal, by 
the influences of truth on the heart, indispose 
men to listen to those objections ; Analogical, 
by showing that such objections lie equally 
against the constitution and course of nature, 
deprive them of all their force, and turn them 
into proofs of divine goodness and power. 

In thus assigning to the three branches of 
evidence a particular position, we are far 
from insinuating that they may not be con- 
sidered in a different order. We merely 
wish to claim for the external evidences the 
rank to which they are entitled in fair argu- 
ment, and to protest against the additional 
and auxiliary evidences being improperly re- 
sorted to, in the first instance, to the neglect 
of the palpable credentials of the Christian 
message. To maintain this is a matter of 
real moment, it places the various branches 
of the inquiry in their true and natural light. 
Still we object not to any part of them being 
separately considered, according to the dis- 
position, age, talents, information, and cir- 
cumstances of men. The Christian evidence 
in each division,, and each subdivision of it,. 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 139 

is SO clear and convincing to a fair and sin- 
cere inquirer, as to admit of a distinct discus- 
sion and exhibition, if it be conducted with 
good faith. But if men wish to seize what 
seems to them a feeble part of the Internal 
or Analogical argument, and press this out 
of its place, disregarding the plain and direct 
proofs of Christianity from miracles, pro- 
phecy, &LC. we then recall them to the con- 
sideration of the real state of the argument. 
We tell them they are no adequate judges of 
what a divine revelation should contain. We 
appeal to the proper and unanswerable proofs 
of a divine religion, in the extraordinary mani- 
festations of Almighty God in its favour. 
And we bid them postpone the examination 
of the subsidiary evidences, till they have 
weighed the primary ones, and received the 
religion which they attest. Thus to a seri- 
ous candid mind, we are willing to open at 
once any part of the wide subject of the evi- 
dences of Christianity ; whilst to a captious 
and unreasonable inquirer, we propose the 
strict rules of debate, and demand the order- 
ly examination of the credentials of tjie reli- 
gion. 



140 WILSON'S ANxlLOGY. 

If, however, after all, men will unreasona- 
bly demand an exposition of the internal cha- 
racter of Christianity in the first place, or 
will dwell on objections raised against its par- 
ticular constitution, we descend on the ground 
they have chosen, and without relinquishing 
our right to assume a higher position and to 
insist only on the direct proofs of it, we meet 
them where they stand, and show them the 
inward excellency of our religion from the 
Internal evidences, or the weakness and in- 
conclusiveness of their objections from the 
Analogical. Thus Christianity stoops, so far 
as it can, to the fancies of men, and argues 
with them on their own principles. This is 
particularly the case with the evidence from 
analogy. 

It is indeed one of the most valuable 
branches of the whole Christian argument, 
because objections are the ground commonly 
taken by unbehevers. For weak, and incon- 
clusive, as these objections are, they are suffi- 
cient, when listened to, to steel the heart 
against the force of truth, and bar up the first 
entrance to the Christian doctrine. The 
young and inexperienced are thus gradually 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 141 

seduced and hardened. It is not that men 
have found out that the External Evidences 
of Christianity are insufficient, for they have 
never studied them — it is not that they have 
discovered the fallacy of the Internal Evi- 
dences, for they have never been in a situa- 
tion to judge of them. But they have heard 
bold things flippantly said against Christiani- 
ty ; things which they were not sufficiently 
informed on the subject to answer ; these 
have sunk into their memories, and acquired 
force by lapse of time ; and thus their minds 
became gradually tainted and poisoned. 
Their passions, impatient of the restraints of 
Christianity, aided the delusion. Their pride 
of intellect, ambitious of forsaking the com- 
mon track, listened to the flattering tale. 
The opinions and example of others, as little 
competent to judge as themselves, attracted 
them onwards. Ridicule, unanswerable ridi- 
cule, came in to their overthrow. The love 
of novelty was not without its force. They 
had no inclination to the patient inquiry which 
such a subject as religion demands ; whereas 
an objection was seized at once. Thus, in- 
sensibly, the impressions of a pious education 
18^ 



142 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

were effaced, and the unhappy youth entered 
on the mazes of infidelity, and came, at last, 
to scofF at the very religion which he once 
reverenced, if he did not obey. 

Here, then, the argument from analogy 
may be of the greatest service. We insist 
not with such a youth, on an examination of 
the External Evidences of religion, to which 
we see he would not attend, and we come at 
once to his objections. We show him, in the 
manner of the preceding treatise, that we 
may well expect to find the same sort of cha- 
racter in a revelation, proceeding from the 
Author of nature, as is found in the constitu- 
tion and order of nature itself; that our igno- 
rance, with respect to natural things, is such, 
that we cannot go on a single step, except as 
facts and experiments lead us by the hand ; 
and, that as this ignorance is the proper an- 
swer to presumptions and difficulties, derived 
from our opinion of things beforehand, so is 
this much more the case in religion, where 
we find only the same kind of diflSculties 
which meet us perpetually in the works of 
the same hand in the course of nature. So 
that, in short, he that rejects Christianity, on 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 143 

account of these difficulties, may for the very- 
same reason, deny the world to have been 
formed by an intelligent Creator. Thus all 
objections against the Scriptures, drawn from 
what is similar or analogous in the order of 
the world, which is acknowledged by the ob- 
jector himself to proceed from an Almighty 
Governor, are satisfactorily silenced ; and the 
mind, freed from harassing and frivolous ob- 
jections, is at liberty to weigh impartially the 
direct proof of Christianity, and then to seek 
the best confirmation of a wavering faith, in 
its salutary effects in pardoning guilt, tran- 
quilizing conscience, subduing pride, regula- 
ting the affections and appetites, and changing 
the whole character from that of a discon- 
tented, captious, selfish creature, to that of a 
patient, docile, thankful, benevolent one. 

Thus all the several branches of the Evi- 
dences of Christianity are ultimately studied, 
though not in the order which the strict rules 
of the case would lay down. The great ob- 
ject is gained if the unbeliever is convinced : 
but if, on the contrary, he refuses to listen to 
our argument from analogy, or professes him- 
self dissatisfied with it, we are still at liberty 



144 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

to remind him, that the only proofs which he 
can claim in the first instance, are the direct 
and proper credentials of miracles and pro- 
phecy, and other External Evidences ; and 
that his paramount duty is to submit to the 
revelation thus attested, and not yield to ob- 
jections and difficulties resting on mere con- 
ceptions and opinions. 

But the use and importance of the argu- 
ment from analogy may be frequently observ- 
ed in the case of the sincere Christian. How 
often is the thoughtful believer harassed by 
objections. The best men are still weak and 
defective ; and notwithstanding the clearest 
deductions of reason, and the avowed subjec- 
tion of the heart to the Gospel, doubts, and 
embarrassments, and apprehensions, will haunt 
the mind. There are few who have not felt 
this. The imagination roves on forbidden 
topics — -thoughts the most unwelcome intrude 
' — arguments fail to satisfy— exploded objec- 
tions recur. Especially if circumstances re- 
quire a Christian to treat with infidels, and 
examine and refute their arguments, the in- 
firmity of his faith will sometimes be an oc- 
casion of surprise and distress to him. In 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 145 

such seasons, no source- of relief is more plen- 
teous than that spriri^ing froo) the clear and 
striking similarity between the objections 
raised against revelation, and those which 
may be raised against the government and 
order of God in natural providence. When 
the External and Internal Evidences of Chris- 
tianity seem cold, and ineffective, and barren, 
the Analogical precisely meet his feelings. 
The full and adequate repose which they 
inspire, is a calm after a storm. The relief 
is more sensible from being unexpected. 
For, somehow or other, the mind, at times, 
appears quite hedged in with fears and specu- 
lations. The state of misery in which the 
world lies — the prevalence of moral evil — 
the immense majority of the human race, 
sunk in Pagan ignorance — the trials of good 
men — the prosperity of the wicked — the 
slow progress of truth and reason ; these, 
and a thousand like matters, perplex, too 
frequently, the benevolent and reflecting mind 
of the Christian. He is quite astonished that 
an all-wise and all-gracious Creator should 
leave a revelation with so little efficacy at- 
tending it. He thinks that he can never ob- 



146 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

tain satisfactioa upon these questions. He 
has forgotten the arguifients which formerly 
silenced iiis scruples, and his faith is ready 
io fail him. The analogical argument then 
occurs to his distracted thoughts — he reads 
it as if he had never read it before — it seems 
new, forcible, conclusive- — his proud reason- 
ings sink — faith resumes her sway^ — humili- 
ty acknowledges the ignorance and littleness 
of man, before the incomprehensible plans of 
the infinite God — his state of probation and 
discipline, forces itself upon his notice — the 
traces of the same divine Governor, in the nat- 
ural and moral world, are again seen and recog- 
nized — and the satisfaction he thus regains is 
more than can be expressed. In proportion 
as the difficulties appeared insuperable, is the 
removal of them consoling and vivifying. 

There is this further to be noticed, as to 
the importance of the argument from analogy, 
that it -is capable of indefinite ramification. 
The fruitfulness of it is such, that each Chris- 
tian, throughout the whole course of life, may 
multiply his observations without exhausting 
the inquiry. There is an inherent freshness 
and life In it, which makes it always new and 
interesting. 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 147 

Indeed, we must observe, before we qtifl 
this topic, that the variety of the Christian 
argument generally, is one striking confirma- 
tion of its truth. The evidences for revela- 
tion may be truly said to be diversified, and 
extensive beyond any thing that could have 
been conceived, we do not say, on a like 
subject, but on any subject whatever. If a 
man were allowed to point out beforehand, 
the proofs of a divine religion to be addressed 
to a reasonable and accountable being, he 
could not name any different in kind from 
those which we possess. For what could a 
man demand, but either the conspicuous dis- 
play of a clearly miraculous power in attesta- 
tion of it, or the incontrovertible fulfilment of 
prophecy — or the triumphant and superna- 
tural spread of the doctrine itself — or the 
visible and mighty effects on all who receive 
it ? And where the revelation is admitted 
and obeyed, what internal confirmation of its 
truth could he desire, beyond the adaptation 
of it to the state and wants of man-^-the 
purity and sublimity of its doctrines and pre- 
cepts— -the untainted benevolence of its foun- 
der — the attendant influence of grace — and 



148 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

the actual accomplishment of its promises to 
all who apply duly for them ? And if objec- 
tions be afterwards raised against this scheme, 
what could he wish further, than to see them 
extinguished by considerations derived from 
the ignorance of man, and the incomprehen- 
sibility of God ? In this diversity of proof 
all the attributes of the Almighty are pledged, 
as it were, to the sincere believer. The 
miracles give him the pledge of the sovereign 
power of God — the prophecies, of his Om- 
niscience — the supernatural propagation of 
the Gospel, of his supreme providence — the 
effects produced, of his fidelity — the adapta- 
tion to the state of man, of his wisdom — the 
purity of the doctrine and morals, of his holi- 
ness — the character of Christ, of his conde- 
scension — the accompanying influence, of his 
grace and goodness — the fulfilment of the 
promises, of his veracity. Thus the eviden- 
ces of Christianity have an impression of die 
divine glory irradiating them,* 



* We are indebted for some thoughts in this part of 
the Essay, to Mr. Davidson's admirable Warburtonian 
Lectures — a work of deep research, and full of fine re- 
flections ; especially on the structure of prophecy. 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 149 

But it is not merely the diversity of these 
topics, but the dissimilarity of them from 
each other, which gives them their in- 
comparable weight. They are not all of a 
kind. The impostor who could be imagined 
to feign one branch of them, would be inca- 
pacitated by that very attempt from feigning 
the rest. They would each demand a sepa- 
rate scheme, distinct powers, a new reach of 
intellect, different combinations. The inde- 
pendence of these different evidences upon 
each other, indescribably augments their force. 
In fact, the annals of mankind never exhibited 
such a religion as Christianity surrounded 
with her credentials, nor any thing like it. 
The systems of Heathenism and Mahomme- 
danism reflect a glory on revelation by the 
contrast which they exhibit in these respects, 
as well as in every other. 

And yet the simplicity of these different 
evidences of our religion is as remarkable as 
their number and diversity. For they are 
level to every understanding. They address 
themselves to the faculty of judgment with 
which we are endowed. The reader of his- 
tory, the student of nature, the scholar, the 
14 



150 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

contemplative philosopher, the uneducated in- 
quirer, the candid mind of every class, may 
find obvious and satisfactory proofs adapted 
to his habits and capacities. If there is no 
bad faith, every one that investigates this 
great question, will find the satisfaction he 
seeks for. 

We only observe, further, that the proper 
force and strength of these evidences, lies in 
the UNION of all the parts of the argument. 
This Bishop Butler has pointed out, chiefly 
in respect of the analogical argument ; but it 
is important to be applied to the entire sub- 
ject. One point may more forcibly strike 
the conviction of one inquirer, and another 
point of another ; a separate argument may 
be weakly stated by the Christian advocate ; 
mistakes may be made in deducing a particu- 
lar historical proof, or alleging a particular 
fact. But the cause of Christianity does not 
rest on any one division of the subject, but 
on the whole. Each separate branch is, in- 
deed, firm enough to sustain the entire edi- 
fice ; but we are not allowed to let it rest 
there. We must remind the sincere inquirer 
that it is the combined effect of the various 



WlLSON^S ANALOGY. 151 

topics, which he is called on to observe. 
And if this be done, we fear not to assert that 
no such inquirer shall fail of all the satisfac- 
tion which a moral certainty can produce. 
The infidel attacks Christianity generally on 
some single isolated point of evidence ; and 
if he can contrive to obscure the brightness 
of this, triumphs as if he had proved the reli- 
gion to be fictitious. And not only so, but if 
he can only raise a doubt about the truth of 
this single, and perhaps subordinate point, he 
turns this doubt into what he calls a positive 
argument against Christianity. But this is 
unfair and disingenuous. Christianity re- 
poses on the entire structure of her evidences 
— a structure which has never, as yet, been 
fairly assailed, much less weakened or de- 
stroyed ; and which rears its front in undi- 
minished stability and glory, mocking at its 
feeble and discomfited opponents. 



Having thus given a view of the connex- 
ion of the Analogical argument, with the 
other branches of the Christian evidence, and 



152 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

of its particular use and importance, we now 
proceed, 2dly, To offer some remarks on BuU 
ler^s particular view of Christianity, and on 
the adaptation of his argument to practical 
religion in all its extent. 

For the reader will have observed, that the 
great argument of the analogy is designed 
rather to silence objections, than to expound 
or defend the minute and interior topics of 
Christianity, on which the life and influence 
of piety, as a practical principle, very much 
depend. Indeed the end of all treatises on 
the Evidences of religion, must be the estab- 
lishnient of the truth of it generally, and not 
the particular development of its parts. Such 
treatises meet the unbeliever, as much as 
possible on his own ground, and attempt to 
gain his assent to the credentials of the divine 
doctrine, leaving the details of that doctrine 
to the ordinary teachers of Christianity, or 
the various practical works, which treat pro- 
fessedly of them. The general features, 
therefore, of the Christian religion are all that 
it falls within the province of the writer on 
JSvideqces to delii^eate fully 5 taking care that 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 153 

his allusions to the inward grace and power 
of it be calculated to lead the reader on to 
adequate views of the whole. These features 
Bishop Butler has seized with a master's eye. 
The moral government of God by rewards 
and punishments, the state of discipline which 
this world is for a future one ; the corruption 
of man, the guilt of sin, the mediation of 
Christ, the propitiatory Sacrifice of his death, 
and his invisible government of his church ; 
the assistance and grace of tlie Holy Spirit ; 
the second advent of our Lord to judgment ; 
the seriousness of mind v^^iich the subject of 
religion demands — these commanding truths 
are the first elements and characteristics of 
Christianity, and are nobly defended and 
cleared from objections by our Author. 

At the same time, it cannot, and need not 
be concealed, that the occasional hints which 
fall from him, on the particular grace of the 
Christian religion, and its operation on the 
heart, are far from being so explicit. His 
references to the precise nature of our justi- 
fication before God — to the extent of the fall 
and ruin of man by sin — to the work of the 
Holy Spirit in regeneration and sanctification 
14* 



154 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

-^-^and to the consolatory, cheering, vivifying 
effects of peace of conscience, and commu- 
nion with God, and hope of rest and joy in 
heaven, do not correspond with the largeness 
of the case. They are partial and defective. 
They might and should have embraced, in- 
cidentally at least, some intimations of the 
peculiar structure and design of spiritual reli- 
gion. The powerful argument in hand should 
at times have been carried out to its conse- 
quences. The inexperienced theological stu- 
dent would not then have been in danger of 
drawing erroneous conclusions, on someprac-^ 
tical points of great importance. 

It is therefore to guard the youthful reader 
from error as to the nature of practical Chris- 
tianity, that the following reflections are offer- 
ed, some of which will only go to explain 
what may be misapprehended in our Author's 
language and argument 5 others will attempt 
to suggest some additional thoughts on topics 
which may appear deficient. Some notice 
will then be taken of the easy adaptation of 
his argument to the practice and experience 
jof religion in ^11 its extent. 

J.. Let us first suggest a hint on the m-r 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 155 

ture and importance of JVatural Religion as 
stated by Bishop Butler. Various mistakes 
have arisen, both as to what is meant by this 
term, and as to its efficacy, independently of 
Christianity. Nor have there been wanting 
those who have denied altogether its exist- 
ence, and its subserviency to the Christian 
doctrine. 

By Natural Religion Bishop Butler under- 
stands religion generally, as distinguished 
from those modifications of it which revela- 
tion superinduced. Natural Religion is that 
service, and those religious regards to Al- 
mighty God, which men owe to Him, as their 
Creator and Benefactor, and which arise out 
of the relations in which they stand to Him, 
as the rational and accountable beings whom 
he formed for his glory, and governs by his 
law. These primitive obligations may plainly 
be distinguished from Christianity, which is 
an additional dispensation, revealing the di- 
vine and stupendous scheme of the recovery 
of man from his state of ruin and guilt, by 
the Son and Spirit of God. Indeed Natural 
Religion is, properly speaking, distinct from 
ibose anticipations of the Christian redemp- 



156 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

tion, which the early revelations to our first 
parents, to the patriarchs and to the Jewish 
people comprised. The traditions, it is true, 
of these early revelations, mingled with the 
faint traces of man's moral nature which have 
survived the fall, constitute the religion of 
nature, as now seen in the various heathen 
nations, where the bright light of the last reve- 
lation, the Christian, has not reached. But 
Butler, usually restrains the meaning of the 
term to the doctrine of a future state, where 
every one shall be rewarded or punished ac- 
cording to his deserts ; and to those duties 
which man owes to God, as his moral and 
righteous Creator and Governor. 

This religion was originally impressed on 
the heart of man, as ' created in righteousness 
and true holiness,' and consists of those habits 
and acts of subjection, obedience, reverence, 
love, adoration, gratitude, trust, prayer, com- 
munion, resignation, and praise, which an 
upright, but finite and dependent being, owed 
to its Sovereign and its Benefactor, and the 
reward consequent on which was to be eternal 
life. This divine impression on the heart 
was effaced by the fall ; and now these habits 



WILSON»S ANALOGY. 157 

and affections are only to be acquired by the 
light and grace of Christianity. It is this 
revelation which has repaired the ruins of the 
fall, brought in a remedy for the apostacy 
and wickedness of mankind, restored the en- 
feebled, and almost extinguished powers of 
natural religion, added surprising discoveries 
of divine wisdom and mercy, in the sacrifice 
of the Son of God, and the mission of the 
Holy Spirit, enjoined important correspond- 
ent duties and obligations ; and thus modified 
the original scheme of religion by these new 
characteristics. 

It is therefore very fair for a Christian wri- 
ter, like our Bishop, to distinguish, in his course 
of reasoning, the two series of habits and feel- 
ings; those which constitute religion as spring- 
ing from our relation to God, as our heavenly 
Creator and Lord, and those which constitute 
religion, as springing from our relation to 
Christ, as our Meditator, and to the Holy Spirit 
as our Sanctifier, and to our heavenly Father, 
as being the Father of mercies, and the God 
of all consolation. It is thus the appstle Paul 
speaks of the Gentiles, which ' have not the 
law, being a law unto themselves, which show 



158 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

the work of the law written in their hearts.' 
It is thus the same apostle expounds the chief 
truths to be learned from the law, to be 
' God's eternal power and Godhead, which 
might be clearly seen by the things which 
were made ;' and charges the heathens with 
^ not liking to retain God in their knowledge,' 
and with ' becoming fools, while professing 
themselves to be wise ;' and, indeed, with 
committing, and glorying in those vices, and 
crimes, and passions, which ' they knew were, 
by the judgment of God, worthy of death.' 
The same apostle's argument at Athens, and 
his discourse to the Lycaonians, proceed on 
this supposition, that there was such a thing as 
the light and religion of nature, independent- 
ly, not of revelation, in the first instance, but 
of the Christian, or last revelation by the 
Gospel. 

Accordingly, in the present age, as well 
as in all preceding ones, the vestiges of natu- 
ral conscience may be traced, however cor- 
rupted. Some notion of a Supreme Being, 
and of worship being due to him — some 
gUmmerings of the doctrine of a future state 
—some idea of the efBcacy of sacrifices — 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 159 

some acknowledgment of the obligations of 
veracity and justice — some remains, in short, 
of a moral sense, are discovered, in greater 
or less force, amidst the scattered fragments 
of the pagan superstitions. There is every- 
where in man, the capacity of being restored 
to all that Christianity designs and promises. 
All this is clear and unembarrassed ground. 
The disputed territory lies beyond. For 
when we come to inquire, whether men, since 
the fall, ever discovered these natural truths 
originally, or regained them when lost, or 
acted upon them efficiently in their conduct, 
we have a host of assailants to contend with. 
And yet, surely, no doubt can be fairly said 
to rest on these questions. All experience 
declares, that natural religion, unless illumi- 
nated and guided by the light of Christianity, 
is impotent and helpless. All experience de- 
clares, that men, destitute of Christianity, 
grow worse and worse. No example has 
been ever produced, either of a pagan nation 
acting up to the scattered notices of religion 
which it possessed, or recovering the purity 
of it when once lost by the lapse of time, or 
the progress of vice. And the high proba- 



160 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

bility is, setting aside, for the sake of argu- 
ment, the testimony of Scripture, that the 
faint light which nature possesses, was an ir- 
radiation from the first revelation of God to 
man. 

Butler is decidedly of opinion that this is 
the case. He says, ^ As there is no hint or 
intimation in history, that this system (of 
natural religion) was first reasoned out ; so 
there is express historical, or traditional evi- 
dence as ancient as history, that it was taught 
first by revelation.' He seems likewise, to hold 
strongly, that such faint traces of this original 
revelation as remain, aided by the fragments 
of man's moral nature, are so inefficient, from 
the want of essential parts, from the absence 
of authority and sanction, and from the inter- 
mixture of gross errors and idolatries, as 
rather to strengthen than curb, much less 
subdue, the passions and vices of mankind* 
Those relics of truth, therefore, being thus 
impotent of themselves, and being unaccom- 
panied by any assurances of pardon, or any 
promises of grace and assistance, only de- 
monstrate, in every age, and in every quar- 
ter of the world, by the state in which they 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 161 

leave men, the indispensable necessity and 
infinite importance of Christianity. 

On the whole, there appears no objection 
to the term Natural Religion in the sense 
explained. Whether any better, and more 
distinctive expression could have been de- 
vised to convey the idea of essential and 
primitive religion, as different from revealed 
and superinduced religion, is scarcely worth 
the inquiry. The use of the present term 
has prevailed ; and it needs only to be em- 
ployed aright, in order to stand free from just 
exception. 

Natural religion, in subserviency to Chris- 
tianity, is of great importance. It is every- 
where taken for granted in Scripture, and 
confirmed and strengthened by the manner 
in which truth is addressed to man. All the 
evidences of revealed religion appeal to our 
moral nature, and meet precisely the faculty 
of judging which we still possess; and would 
have no medium of proof — and, therefore, 
no authority to convince — if this moral sense 
should be denied. Moreover, it becomes 
yet more important, in proportion as the light 
of Christianity, diffused around it, illuminates, 
15 



162 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

in some faint degree, its grosser darkness, 
and dispels its baser corruptions and supersti- 
tions. In Christian countries, men who re- 
ject Christianity insensibly repair the decayed 
and dilapidated temple of nature with the 
materials which it supplies. And it is with 
natural religion, in this form, that we have 
chiefly to treat in this country. It then serves 
to show men, that their consciences are bound,, 
not only by the law of Christianity which 
they spurn and reject, but by the law of na- 
ture, of which they cannot divest themselves ; 
not only by the infinite benefits and stupen- 
dous discoveries of the revelation of the Gos- 
pel, to which they ought to bow, but by the 
truths impressed originally on the nature of 
man, and sanctioned and enlarged in the 
primitive revelations of the Creator to him — 
revelations, of which every glimmering ray 
of knowledge, every feeble emotion of con- 
science, every remaining barrier between vir- 
tue and vice, every impression of the respon- 
sibility of man, every anticipation of future 
judgment, every relic and trace of an im- 
mortal and accountable spirit, are proofs and 
consequences. Thus men are reminded. 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 163 

that they do not escape from moral govern- 
ment by rejecting Christianity, but fall back 
on a ruined and unaided principle, which 
leaves them just as responsible to God, the 
Creator and Judge, as before — only with 
the accumulated guilt of having spurned the 
only way of pardon and grace which the in- 
finite mercy of God had provided for them. 

The consideration of natural religion is 
also valuable, as it points out the grounds of 
those exhortations, warnings, reproofs, invita- 
tions, and commands which constitute so very 
large a proportion of the whole Scriptures, 
and on which revealed religion proceeds, and 
by which it works. The duty of man re- 
mains unaltered, notwithstanding his sinful- 
ness and moral impotency ; his capacity of 
receiving instruction, and being the subject 
of persuasion and alarm, remains the same, 
though he has fallen from his original recti- 
tude ; his guilt in rejecting the invitations of 
mercy, and the remonstrances of conscience, 
remain undiminished, though his power of 
complying with them must be sought for 
from above. Further, the use of all the 
means of grace as adapted to his reasonable 



164 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

and moral nature — the exhibition and appli- 
cation of all the terrors of the law, and of all 
the grace of the Gospel, as the proper object 
of his affections, together with the earnest- 
ness and importunity with which these topics 
should be enforced — all rest on the plain 
footing, that some remains of feeling, and 
conscience, and light, rest with man, by 
which it pleases God to work in the dispen- 
sation of his Spirit. 

Nor is the religion of nature less impor- 
tant, as fixing, in some measure, the ends, 
and guiding the course, of that which is re- 
vealed. All the chief abuses of the scheme 
of grace in the Gospel would be guarded 
against, if not excluded, if natural religion 
were allowed its subordinate influence. Such 
abuses spring from the desire, often laudable 
in its apparent object, of carrying the doc- 
trines of the Gospel to their full measure, and 
applying them to the heart in their exuberant 
consolation. Hence men come first to deny 
natural religion — then to object to the prac- 
tical exhortations of the Gospel ; next to as- 
sert, that the state of death in trespasses and 
sins in which men lie, makes all precepts 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 165 

contradictory, and all warnings fruitless ; and, 
lastly, to spurn the authority and obligation 
ofthe moral law of God, and reject all the doc- 
trines of Christian morals and Christian obedi- 
ence. Thus an opening is made, insensibly, 
to the worst abuses of the Divine mercy and 
grace — abuses which a more implicit regard 
to the Scriptures, on the subject of the essen- 
tial nature of religion, would have prevented. 
The end of Christianity is to make us holy 
— to bring us back to the purity from which 
we fell — to make natural religion practicable, 
possible, delightful ; to infuse into it the hu- 
mility which becomes a fallen condition — 
the faith in an atonement which the sacrifice 
of the cross demands — the gratitude and 
love which the benefits of that cross require 
— the dependence on the blessed Spirit which 
our feebleness makes indispensable — the joy 
which the hope of heaven warrants and be- 
stows. Thus Christianity modifies, indeed, 
the essential religion first taught in the origi- 
nal revelation to man, and impressed on his 
heart; but never contradicts it — never swerves 
from the same end — never releases from its 
main obligations — never violates its primary 
15* 



166 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

principles and dictates. Man is only bound 
more strongly, by all the benefits of Chris- 
tianity to the obedience which he was, by 
nature, formed and designed to render to his 
God ; and the moment he views those bene- 
fits in a manner to loosen, instead of confirm- 
ing, the bonds of this obedience, he may 
conclude he is mistaking the whole end and 
object of the Christian revelation. 

2. But this leads us to 'make an observa- 
tion on some of our great Author^ s expressions 
and sentiments, on the remains of JVatural 
Religion J and on the grounds of our justifica- 
tion and acceptance with God, which seem 
open to exception. For whilst we thus claim 
for natural religion, what the Scriptures clear- 
ly imply, or rather inculcate, and defend But- 
ler on this point, we must cautiously avoid 
the dangerous error of attributing to it a pow- 
er, which, in the fallen state of man, it does 
not and cannot possess, and which may mili- 
tate against what the same Scriptures teach 
of the extent of man's depravity, and the 
necessity of divine grace, in order to his 
doing any thing spiritually good. And, there- 
fore, the language which occurs in some part^ 



VVCLSON'S ANALOGY. 167 

of the Analogy, on the nature and powers of 
man, may appear to be too strong, too gene- 
ral, too unqualified. We speak here with 
hesitation, because, considering the line of 
argument pursued by this most able writer, 
and the class of persons he addressed, it may 
be doubted whether this remark is applicable 
in fairness or not. Still we cannot but think, 
that he sometimes attributes too much to the 
unaided nature of man, allows too much to 
his moral sense and feeling, dwells too large- 
ly on his tendencies to virtue and goodness, 
and speaks too ambiguously on the ground of 
his justification before God. Such expres- 
sions as the following, considering the con- 
nexion in which they stand, are open to 
abuse : ' Moral nature given us by God' — 
' falling in with our natural apprehension and 
sense of things' — ' There is nothing in the 
human mind contradictory to virtue' — * The 
moral law is interwoven in our nature' — ' Men 
may curb their passions for temporal motives 
in as great a degree as piety commonly re- 
quires' — ' Natural religion is the foundation 
and principal part of Christianity' — ' Men's 
happiness and virtue are left to themselves, 



168 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

are put in their own power' — ^ Religion re- 
quires nothing which men are not well able 
to perform' — 'The relation in which we 
stand to God the Father, is made known to 
us by reason.' Such language continually 
occurring, together with the terms, ' virtue^ 
vice, honest man, satisfaction of virtue, vi-^ 
ciousness of the world,' &;c. (instead of the 
scriptural terms, ' holiness, sin, renewed man, 
peace of conscience, corruption and wicked-^ 
ness of the world,') may have the tendency 
to exalt too highly the present fallen and cor- 
rupted powers of man, and prevent that deep 
and thorough humiliation which are necessary 
to a due appreciation and reception of the 
grace of the gospel. They tend also to les- 
sen the guilt of man before God, and lower 
the standard of that holiness which the Chris- 
tian doctrine requires and produces. Some 
most excellent observations and statements 
are indeed made, in the course of the work, 
on the mediation of Christ, and the influences 
of the Spirit, which go to correct the misap- 
prehension to which I am referring ; but these 
parts of the work bear but a small proportion 
to the whole treatise ; whereas the expres- 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 169 

sions in question occur perpetually, and in 
every variety of form, and under each divi- 
sion of the argument. They form the staple, 
and enter into the contexture, and give the 
colour, to the entire fabric. And thence 
arises the danger which we venture to point 
out. We do not dwell here on the fact, that 
this light of nature is in Christian countries 
reflected from Christianity, and is never found 
where Christianity is unknown. Nor do we 
stop to suggest, that natural rehgion, in its 
best and oldest times, confessed its weakness, 
and sought for help and aid. We are con- 
tent to take things in their most favourable 
construction; and we still profess our con- 
viction, that all language is reprehensible, 
which, by fair inference, leads men to think 
they can repent, and turn from sin to God, 
without his special and effectual grace. And 
in this view, we would caution the student 
against affixing too strong a sense to the ex- 
pressions which we have cited. 

Jn connexion with this remark, we must 
unequivocally declare our apprehension, that 
the language used by our Author, in speak- 
ing of the Almighty finally rendering to every 



170 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

one according to his works, and establishing 
the entire rights of distributive justice, is open 
to objection. Perhaps, if taken alone, it 
might admit of a favourable interpretation ; 
but, when joined with the overstatements 
already noticed, on the powers of man and 
the remains of natural religion, it becomes 
decidedly dangerous. The great doctrine of 
our justification before God,, 'not by our 
own works and deservings, but only for the 
merits of our Lord Jesus Christ,' is too fun- 
damental, and too important, to be under- 
mined, even incidentally. We refer to such 
expressions as the following : ' The advanta- 
ges of Christianity will be bestowed upon 
every one, in proportion to the degrees of his 
virtue' — ' Divine goodness may be a disposi- 
tion to make the good, the faithful, the hon- 
est man happy' — ' We have scope and oppor- 
tunities here, for that good and bad behaviour 
which God will reward and punish hereafter, 
— ' Religion teaches us, that we are placed 
here, to qualify us, by the practice of virtue, 
for another state which is to follow it' — ' Our 
repentance is accepted to eternal life.' These, 
and similar statements, occur throughout the 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 171 

work. In the second part, where the lead- 
ing features of revealed religion are delinea- 
tedj they ought, by all means, to have been 
accompanied with those modifications which 
the superinduced scheme of the gospel, and 
the necessities of man, and the glory of the 
cross of Christ, and the ends of self-know- 
ledge and humility require. We say they 
should have been accompanied by such mod- 
ifications, because they are so accompanied 
in the Holy Scriptures. The doctrine, that 
' every one shall receive the things done in 
the body,' that ' they that have done good 
shall rise to the resurrection of life, and they 
that have done evil to the resurrection of 
damnation,' is most true, and most important. 
But the doctrines which accompany and 
modify this fundamental truth, should never 
be wholly lost sight of even in a treatise on 
Evidences, when any reference is made to 
the subject. We are taught in the New 
Testament, that these works must spring from 
faith and love to our Saviour Christ, and 
must be renounced in point of merit, on ac- 
count of the inherent evil which defiles the 
very best of them, and must be accepted only 



172 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

through that Sacrifice which is the real foot- 
ing of a sinner's deahngs with a holy God, 
and must be regarded by those who perform 
them, with that deep humility, and almost 
unconsciousness of having done them, which 
is so strongly marked in the conduct of the 
righteous, in our Lord's account of the last 
day. Now, these modifications are so essen- 
tial, that the language of our author, however 
undesignedly, becomes really dangerous when 
stripped of them. And man is so prone to 
pride, self-confidence, reliance on his own 
merits, and presumptuous ignorance of his 
failings ; and the Aposde Paul insists so 
warmly on the immense importance of the 
doctrine of justification without works, that 
too much caution cannot be used in the most 
incidental representations given on such sub- 
jects. 

It is the more necessary to guard against 
a false reliance on our own Vv^orks and de- 
servings, because a mistake here pervades 
and corrupts every other part of religion. The 
good works of the pious Christian, whose 
mind is duly imbued with a becoming sense 
of his fall and corruption, of his unutterable 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. ] 73 

obligations to the great propitiation, and his 
entire dependence on the influences of the 
Holy Spirit, are very different from the par- 
tial, external, worldly, selfish, proud perform- 
ances of the nominal professor of Christiani- 
ty. The morality of the nominal Christian 
rises very little higher than that of the unbe- 
liever; his rule is fashion; his. limit, con- 
venience ; his aim, to do as little as possible 
in religion. He performs some actions, in- 
deed, which agree, as to their form and ex- 
ternal appearance, with the law of God ; but, 
in truth, spring from habit, ambition, the love 
of reputation, the regard to society, the re- 
monstrances of conscience. He soon fills up 
what he concludes to be intended by a pious 
and virtuous life. He soon attains to his own 
definition of a faithful honest man. He soon 
satisfies himself that his virtues surpass and 
overbalance his vices, and that, as he is to 
be judged according to his works, he has 
nothing to fear before the tribunal of Christ. 
In the mean time, his heart is alienated from 
God and true, obedience to him ; faith and 
love never visit his breast ; and his religion 
consists with prejudice, perhaps hatred and 
16 



174 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

exasperation, against the real system of the 
gospel. 

The truly devout Christian, on the con- 
trary, aims at holiness, and not merely at 
what the world calls virtue ; endeavours to 
subdue his passions, as well as regulate his 
conduct ; labours to serve God, and adorn 
Christianity, and do good to others, to the 
very utmost of his power ; spends much time 
and care in watching over his motives, and 
cultivating the inward principles of piety ; 
devotes a portion of the day to the reading 
of the Scriptures, to the public and private 
calls of devotion, to self-examination, thanks- 
giving, and religious regards towards the ever- 
blessed God, and his Saviour and Redeemer, 
Christ. And after he has done all, he ac- 
counts himself an unprofitable servant, re- 
nounces all merit in his own works, attributes 
every good in them to the divine grace, and 
places all his trust in the vicarious sacri- 
fice of the Son of God. He is the publican 
smiting on his breast, and saying, * God be 
merciful to me a sinner ;' whilst all other 
men, however pure in the eyes of the world, 
are, in fact, like the Pharisee, STvpUen yvlth 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 175 

conceit and arrogance, dwelling fondly on 
their own performances ; looking, perhaps, 
with contempt on others, and placing no real 
trust in the mercy of God. Thus, even if 
all the separate expressions above adverted 
to, could be defended, yet would they still 
lead to a wrong end, because unattended 
with these explanations which the Scriptures 
carefully supply. We are to be 'judged ac- 
cording to our works,' and shall be rewarded 
or punished ^ according to the deeds done in 
the body ;' but in a high and transcendent 
sense in the case of the righteous, as their 
works spring from faith, are the effects of 
grace, and are accompanied with humility 
and self-renunciation. 

3. These observations lead me to notice a 
general defect^ as it seems to me, in our Au^ 
thorns representation of the stupendous recov- 
ery of man provided in the Gospel. For if 
any doubt could be raised on the inexpedi- 
ency of the above language, all such doubt 
would be removed, when we find, on further 
examination, that our Bishop's allusions to 
the whole doctrine of redemption and salva- 
tion, as revealed in the New Testament, are 



176 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

not sufficiently clear and comprehensive to 
agree fully with the Scriptural statements of 
our natural corruption, and of the operations 
of grace as adapted to it. Let us not be 
misunderstood. Bishop Butler is far from 
omitting altogether the peculiar scheme of 
the gospel. He states distinctly the insuffi- 
ciency of repentance alone to restore us to 
God's favour. He speaks with admirable 
clearness on the Mediation and Sacrifice of 
Christ. He quotes the passages in Scrip- 
ture, which teach the vicarious nature of 
Christ's sufferings, and insists on the benefit 
of those sufferings being something much be- 
yond mere instruction or example. On these 
subjects, at least on some parts of them, no 
complaint can be alleged against his brief 
statements ; they are luminous and adequate, 
for an elementary treatise. Still the general 
idea of the scheme of the gospel as a dispen- 
sation of grace, which would be gathered 
from the whole of his representations and 
suggestions, would be erroneous. He calls 
Christianity ' a moral system ;' he speaks of 
it as teaching us chiefly ' new duties, and 
new relations in which we stand ;' he de- 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 177 

scribes it as ' an additional order of Provi- 
dence.' These expressions are cold and in- 
adequate. But we object most of all to the 
following passage : ' The doctrine of the gos- 
pel appears to be, not only that Christ taught 
the efficacy of repentance, but rendered it of 
the efficacy which it is, by what he did and 
suffered for us ; that he obtained for us the 
benefit of having our repentance accepted 
unto eternal life ; not only that he revealed 
to sinners, that they were in a capacity of 
salvation, and how they might obtain it ; but 
moreover, that he put them into this capacity 
of salvation, by what he did and suffered for 
them ; put us into a capacity of escaping 
future punishment, and obtaining future hap- 
piness. And it is our wisdom, thankfully to 
accept the benefit, by performing the condi- 
tions upon which it is offered, on our part, 
without disputing how it was procured on 
his.' (Part II. Chap. V. § vi.) Surely this 
is plainly deficient. Surely the salvation of 
Christ proceeds on a different footing, and 
includes much more than this. Surely the 
great Sacrifice of the cross not only obtained 
for the sincere believer, that his ' repentance 
16* 



178 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

should be accepted to eternal life,' (a phrase 
unscriptural in its very terms,) not only put 
him in a capacity of salvation, not only pro- 
posed certain conditions to be performed on 
his part — all which places the stress of sal- 
vation upon ourselves, makes the reception 
and application of it to depend on our own 
efforts, and leaves to our Lord merely the 
office of removing external hindrances af- 
fording us some aid by his Spirit, and sup- 
plying deficiencies — but purchased also sal- 
vation itself, in all the amplitude of that 
mighty blessing ; procured pardon, recon- 
ciliation, justification, adoption, acceptance, 
the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the promise 
of everlasting life. Surely salvation brings 
men from darkness unto light, reverses the 
sentence of condemnation, and makes them 
* the righteousness of God in Christ ;' it places 
them under a new covenant, and confers the 
grace necessary for ' repentance towards God, 
and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ ;' it 
puts them on the footing, not of the law, but 
of the gospel, not of works, but of grace ; not 
of obtaining acceptance for their repentance, 
but of receiving ' the gift of God, which is 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 179 

eternal life.' Let Butler's summary of the 
benefits of Christ's death be compared with 
such summaries as the Apostle gives : — ' We 
have redemption through his blood, even the 
forgiveness of sins' — ' By grace are ye saved, 
through faith ; and that not of yourselves, it 
is the gift of God } not of works, lest any 
man should boast ; for we are his workman- 
ship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, 
which God hath before ordained, that we 
should walk in them.' 

With this defective view of tl\e fruits of 
our Lord's Propitiation, is allied a corres- 
pondent defect as to the nature and impor- 
tance of faith, by which the benefits of that 
propitiation are received and applied. The 
tendency of some of Butler's summary state- 
ments, however undesigned, and arising per- 
haps, in some measure, from his coldness in 
pressing the particular course of his argu- 
ment, is to lead the reader to suppose that 
the effects of Christ's redemption are enjoy- 
ed by all who profess the Christian religion, 
and live a moral life ; that is, by all w^ho 
have that general belief in the doctrine of 
Christianity, which springs from education 



180 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

and rational conviction, if they are free from 
gross sin, cultivate virtue, and set a good 
example to others, by a decent reputable 
conduct. All these things are indeed inclu- 
ded in the acts and fruits of a true and lively 
faith, but they reach not those peculiar effects 
and properties of it which prove it to be spir- 
itual and salutary. Faith is ' the substance 
of things hoped for, and the evidence of 
things not seen.' It is a secret, cordial, holy 
exercise of the understanding and affections, 
in receiving God's testimony concerning 
Christ, and in reposing all the trust and con- 
fidence of the soul on the merits of that Sa- 
viour for everlasting life. It is not merely a 
general, cold^ historical assent to certain 
truths ; but a particular, affectionate, living, 
practical belief of them, on the authority of 
God, and an acting fully upon them, as infi- 
nitely good and important. It is not simply 
a notion, a creed, an established hereditary 
sentiment; but a holy principle, springing 
from a personal sense of our lost condition, 
and apprehending for ourselves the blessings 
of Christ, and relying upon them for everlast- 
ing salvation. Faith is the eye which looks 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 181 

to Christ, as the brazen serpent which Moses 
raised ; it is the foot which flies to Him, as 
the man-slayer fled to the city of refuge, that 
he might escape the avenger of blood ; it is 
the hand which receives, as a needy beggar, 
the inestimable gift of God, freely offered lo 
him ; it is the ear which hears, with eager 
solicitude, the voice and invitation of mercy, 
that it may hve ; it is the appetite which 
* hungers and thirsts' after Christ, and feeds 
on his flesh ' and drinks his blood,' that it 
may have eternal life. Faith, like Noah, 
prepares the ark, and enters it for rescue ; 
faith builds on Christ the sure foundation ; 
faith puts on Christ, as the robe of righteous- 
ness, and the garment of salvation. Accord- 
ingly, its effects correspond with its divine 
origin, and the matchless benefits it receives. 
It ' works by love,' it ' overcomes the world,' 
it ' sees Him who is invisible,' it ^ glories in 
tribulation,' it 'purifies the heart,' it antici- 
pates heaven, it ' quenches the fiery darts of 
the wicked one,' it produces uniform, spiritu- 
al, cheerful, willing obedience. Let any one 
read what the Scriptures assert of faith, what 
they ascribe to it, and the earnestness with 



182 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

which they enforce its necessity, and he will 
be convinced, that it is totally different from 
that dead, speculative assent to the Christian 
scheme, which is often confounded with it. 
Faith includes, besides the general reception 
of Christianity, a particular conviction of our 
own sins, a particular apprehension of our 
own lost estate, a personal appHcation for our- 
selves of the offered blessings of the gospel, 
and a distinct and spiritual reliance for our 
own salvation, on the death and merits of our 
Saviour Christ ; — and some reference should 
have been made to all this by our Author ; 
at least, no expression, however brief, should 
have been inconsistent with it. 

4. All main defects in our views of prac- 
tical Christianity hang together. The same 
kind of inadequate statements^ therefore^ seem 
to us to he chargeahle on our author^ remarks 
on the doctrine of the Holy Ghost. Indeed 
we are not sure if serious omissions are not 
to be found here — ^more serious than on 
most of the preceding topics. Bishop But- 
ler allows indeed distinctly, that the Holy 
Spirit is our Sanctifier, and that the recovery 
of mankind is a scheme carried on by the 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 183 

Son and Spirit of God. He speaks fre- 
quently of the aid which the Spirit, affords to 
good men. He acknowledges that man is a 
depraved creature, and wants not merely to 
be improved, but to be renewed ; and he 
quotes the striking text, ' Except a man be 
born of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the 
kingdom of God.' We would wish to give 
the full benefit of these admissions in favour 
of the Bishop, and against what we are abQut 
to state. Nor do we doubt, that this re- 
markable man implored the operations of the 
Spirit, in his own case ; experienced his con- 
solations, and ascribed every thing to his 
grace. Still we conceive, his general lan- 
guage in his Analogy, on this fundamental 
subject, does not come up to the Scriptural 
standard. He does not give even that pro- 
minence to it which he does to the mediation 
of Christ. He speaks of the Spirit as aid- 
ing, but scarcely at all, as creating anew ; he 
describes his assistances, but hardly ever his 
mighty operations in changing the whole 
heart ; he talks of his presence with good 
men, but seldom, if at all, of his regeneration 
and conversion of the wicked ; he allows co- 



184 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

operating, but not preventing grace — at least, 
not clearly and distinctly, as the Scriptures 
teach, and as the importance of the case re- 
quires ; he dwells on the help of the Spirit^ 
in subduing our passions, and qualifying us 
for heaven, but passes over slightly the illu- 
minating influences of the Spirit, in opening 
the understanding, and his transforming pow- 
er, in ' taking away the heart of stone, and 
giving an heart of flesh.' We read little or 
nothing in our author of the Holy Spirit's 
work in awakening men, like those asleep j 
quickening them, as those dead in sin ; de- 
livering them from the power of Satan, as 
those enslaved ; convincing them of sin, as 
those ignorant and proud ; creating in them 
a new and contrite heart, as those obdurate 
and perverse ; and implanting in them, the 
first seeds of repentance, faith, love, and obe- 
dience, as those needing a new^ and heavenly 
birth. All this is of the greatest importance, 
because, if the foundations of true obedience 
are not laid in the Scriptural doctrine of an 
entire renewal of the fallen heart, the subse- 
quent building must be slight and insecure. 
If men are not taught the necessity of a new 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 185 

creation in Christ Jesus, in consequence of 
the blindness of their understanding, as well 
as the disorder of their affections, they must, 
and will begin, and we find, in fact, they do 
begin, their religion in a proud, self-depend- 
ent temper ; in ignorance of their own wants, 
and of the mighty change which must take 
place in them. 

The illumination of the Spirit is especially 
important in this view. It is a doctrine hu- 
miliating, indeed, to the proud reason of man, 
but essential to any real knowledge of the 
Gospel of Christ. Our Lord places the gift 
of the Spirit at the very entrance of the 
Christian life, and directs men to pray for it, 
as the key and summary of all other bless- 
ings, ' Ask and ye shall receive ; seek and 
ye shall find ; knock and it shall be opened 
to you. If ye, being evil, know how to give 
good gifts unto your children, how much 
more shall your Father which is in heaven, 
give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him ?' 
It might have pleased God, for any thing we 
know, to have given us a revelation so framed 
as to be intelligible to us in all its parts, with- 
out further aid ; or it might have pleased him 
17 



186 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

to have made the understanding of it, in all 
its parts, plainly above our powers of mind, 
and capacities of comprehension. In either 
case we should then have had no need of the 
illumination of the Spirit ; in the iSrst, be- 
cause the revelation would have been wholly- 
level to our natural powers ; in the second, 
because it would have been wholly out of the 
reach of them. But it has pleased God to 
give us a revelation, containing much that is 
plain, in its history, its facts, its external du- 
ties, its sacraments, its morals ; and much 
that is mysterious and incomprehensible, in 
its vast scheme, in the purpose and will of its 
divine Author, in the attributes and glory of 
the persons of the Godhead, in the miracu- 
lous conception and incarnation of our Lord, in 
the wonders of the cross, and the operations 
of grace. And, at the same time, much also 
that is of a mixed nature, being neither so 
plain as to be level to our unaided understand- 
ing, nor so elevated as to be wholly placed 
above their compass and capacity ; but requir- 
ingthe special guidance and illumination of the 
Holy Spirit, to be rightly apprehended and 
employed : — such is the ruined state of man, 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 187 

the evil of sin, the nature of true conversion 
to God, of faith, of love, of peace, of joy, of 
communion with God, of new obedience ; all, 
in short, that regards the application and use 
of truth. These things cannot be understood 
by man in his natural state, but must be 
learned by the teaching of the Holy Spirit. 
And thus the plan of Christianity is, in this 
view, a further test of men's characters. 
They must stoop at the very threshold, and 
sue for a heavenly light, and take other mea- 
sures of sin, and themselves, and God, and 
repentance, and faith, and conversion, and 
obedience, than nature can give, or they will 
fatally err. The ignorance and prejudices 
of the ' evil heart of unbelief,' will infalHbly 
betray them. Either no sense will be put 
on the parts of the Scripture, relating to these 
subjects, or a forced, low, insulfhcient sense 
which evades, and explains away, instead of 
implicitly receiving, the real meaning. Not 
that we claim an illumination of the Spirit 
which supersedes at all the use of the human 
faculties in studying the Bible, or requires a 
new sense to be put on ordinary language 
and construction, or communicates new truths, 



188 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

not already revealed in the written word of 
God ; or encourages or warrants enthusiasm 
and human fancies ; or intrenches on the 
miraculous powers conferred on the apostles ; 
or alters the rule of duty, and the obhgations 
of man to obey it ; or acts in a way of force 
and compulsion inconsistent with our reason- 
able and accountable nature. What we main- 
tain, is the necessity of the secret and imper- 
ceptible influence of the Holy Spirit upon the 
understanding, sought by diligent prayer, and 
communicated gradually, in the use of ra- 
tional means ; by which the mind. is freed 
from prejudice and aversion against truth, 
and is opened to receive the instructions of 
the written word of God, in their full and 
natural signification and use. 

But we pause. This is not the place to 
enter on a discussion of the work of the 
Holy Ghost in man's sanctification. We 
have said enough, if we have convinced the 
theological student that the impression which 
Butler gives of this subject is far too slight and 
superficial. Let it be well remembered, that 
God has given us a revelation of his will, 
with the additional promise of his Spirit, to 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 189 

make it effectual to its high purposes. The 
light of heaven is not more necessary to our 
discernment of natural objects and beauties, 
than the light of the Spirit to our discern- 
ment of spiritual objects and fitnesses. The 
characteristic of the New Dispensation, is 
the promise of the Spirit. And with this 
persuasion, we cannot dissemble our fears, 
that the language of Bishop Butler may lead 
to dangerous mistakes. 

5. But, in truths all these deficiencies^ if 
we are right in our judgment about them^ 
spring from an inadequate view of the fallen 
state of man. We know the controversies on 
this mysterious subject. We allow that state- 
ments have too often been made, which go 
to annihilate man's moral nature, and his 
capacity of restoration ; which weaken his 
responsibility and unnerve the exhortations 
and invitations which the Scriptures address 
to him ; which extinguish the faint light of 
natural conscience, and repress effort and 
watchfulness. But we cannot but know, at 
the same time, that the errors on the side of 
extenuating and lessening the Scriptural ac- 
count of man's spiritual state since the fall, 
17* 



190 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

are equally dangerous, and more prevalent. 
We cannot therefore conceal our conviction, 
that Butler's view of human depravity does 
not fully meet the truth of the case, as deline- 
ated in the inspired writings, and confirmed 
by uniform experience. He speaks, we al- 
low, occasionally of men ' having corrupted 
their natures,' having lost their ' original rec- 
titude,' and as having permitted ' their pas- 
sions to become excessive by repeated viola- 
tions of their inward constitution.' He avows 
that mankind is in 'a state of degradation, 
however difHcult it may be to account for it ; 
and that the crime of our first parents was 
the occasion of our being placed in a more 
disadvantageous condition.' Yet, notwith- 
standing these expressions, the sincerity and 
importance of which, so far as they go, we 
do not for a moment call in question, he 
dwells, in the course of his work, so copious- 
ly on man's powers and capacities — on his 
^favouring virtue' — on his 'having within 
him the principle of amendment' — on 'its 
being in his own power to take the path of 
life' — on 'virtue being agreeable to his na- 
ture' — on 'vice never being chosen for its 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 191 

own sake ;' that we cannot but consider the 
result as dangerous. If these expressions 
were quahfied, as they are in Scripture, by 
other and explanatory statements, the danger 
would be less; but standing as they do, they 
convey the idea, that nrian is not that incon- 
sistent, weak, corrupt, perverse, depraved, 
impotent creature which the Word of God 
teaches us he is. The consequence of slight 
impressions of this great truth infallibly is, that 
men, not being duly instructed in their real 
state before God, cannot feel that humih'ty, 
nor exercise that penitence, nor sue for that 
renewal, which all depend on the primary 
fact of a total moral ruin ; and which form 
the adaptation between the real grace of the 
Gospel, and the actual wants of man. Thus 
all the great ends of Christianity are missed, 
and inferior benefits only are derived from it. 
Neither conversion on the one hand, nor real 
obedience to God on the other, can be at- 
tained ; and the arch, deprived of its key- 
stone, as it were, loses both its beauty and 
its strength. 

The scriptural account of man is, that ' he 
is born in sin and shapen in iniquity' — that 



192 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

* in him dwelleth no good thing' — that * his 
heart is deceitful above all things, and despe- 
rately wicked' — that ^ the very imaginations 
of the thoughts of his heart are only evil con- 
tinually' — that ' he cannot, of himself, think 
any thing that is good' — that ^ he is dead in 
trespasses and sins' — that 'he is by nature a 
child of wrath,' — lost, enslaved, miserable, 
ignorant, corrupt; — his heart 'at enmity 
with God' — his passions and affections set on 
' divers lusts and pleasures' — his whole moral 
nature ' alienated from the life of God.' This 
strong language is not contradictory to what 
the Scriptures, from which it is taken, teach 
of man's responsibility — his remaining sense 
of right and wrong — his conscience — his 
fears of judgment — his duty and his obliga- 
tions ; but it plainly instructs us, that these 
relics and fragments of a former rectitude, 
are relics and fragments, and nothing more ; 
and that as to any effective love of holiness 
— as to any real return to God — as to any 
positive efforts to recover or restore himself, 
he can do nothing, except as God ' worketh 
in him to will and to do of his good pleasure.' 
The edifice is decayed throughout ; it must 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 193 

be taken down and re-erected by the Divine 
Architect. The leprosy has infected every 
part ; it must be levelled with the ground 
and built anew. Let this fundamental doc- 
trine be understood, and produce its due 
effects, and all will be easy and intelligible 
in the Christian scheme of redemption ; every 
thing will occupy its due place. The apos- 
tacy and fall of man will prepare for salva- 
tion by grace — for a free justification by the 
merits of Christ — for an entire renovation by 
the blessed Spirit — for a sincere and unre- 
served obedience. And not only for obedi- 
ence, but for love to God and man — cheer- 
ful dedication to the service of Christ — a 
temper of compassion and kindness towards 
others — a distinterested, amiable, and active 
benevolence — a zeal for the glory of God, 
and the good of men, and a watchfulness 
over the first risings of sinful passions and 
appetites. All this will be connected with a 
' peace of God which passeth understanding' 
— 'joy in the Holy Ghost' — 'patience in 
tribulation' — delight in prayer, moditation, 
and the contemplation of God and heaven — 
a sense of happiness and tranquillity, in spi- 



194 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

ritual things — a moderation as to all earthly 
concerns, and a victory over the applause 
and frown of the vi^orld. 

6. For this is the next thing we shall pre- 
sume to mention, as defective in the allusions 
and statements of our Author, — his standard 
of the effects of Christianity, in the holy, hap- 
py lives of real Christians, is far too low. It 
could not indeed be otherwise. The spiritual 
life is a whole. If the glory of the Saviour, 
and the operations of his Spirit, and the total 
ruin of man, as requiring both, are not first 
understood, it is impossible that the blessed 
fruits of all this, in the new life and happi- 
ness of the renovated, pardoned, and sancti- 
fied heart, should be produced. There is, 
however, such a thing as ^ the love of Christ 
constraining a man to live no longer to him- 
self, but to Him that died for him and rose 
again ;' there is such a thing as the inward 
experience of the grace of Christianity — 
there is such a thing as a holy, happy, spiritual 
life, which differs as much from a merely ra- 
tional and moral one, as the rational life differs 
from the animal, and the animal from the 
vegetable. Not to have seized this idea, is 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 195 

to have missed one peculiar feature of true 
Christianity. 

7. In short, the whole of what we would 
advance amounts to this, the, standard of 
Christianity^ as applied to the heart and life 
of man, which the readers of Butler would form 
from his general language, is far below what 
we conceive to be the standard of the Sacred 
Scriptures. In our view of the scriptural 
standard, we may be wrong ; but we think 
every reader will perceive that the several 
points on which we have offered remarks, 
hang together. If the view we take of the 
extent of the fall be in the main correct, then 
the view of justification, of the grace of the 
Gospel, of faith, of the work of the Holy 
Ghost, of the peace and consolation of the 
Christian's heart, and of the zeal and spiritu- 
ality of his obedience, are probably correct 
also. They are links of one chain. The 
connection is indispensable. They rise or 
fall together. — All we entreat of the reader, 
is an impartial examination of the entire ques- 
tion. We beg only that it may not be deter- 
mined by matters irrelevant — by fashion, 
prejudice, the spirit of party, temporal and 



196 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

subordinate interests. We beg only that the 
introduction of tenets which we do not hold, 
or of consequences which we abhor, may not 
be mixed up with the discussion. The sim- 
ple question is, Is the system which the lan- 
guage we have been condemning seems to 
favor, or the 'system which we have suggest- 
ed in its stead, the true system of the New 
Testament ? Which comes nearest to the 
Bible ? Which has the apparent sanction of 
the inspired oracles of - God ? Which suits 
the expressions and sentiments of the sacred 
writers in all their parts ? Which takes in 
naturally and without effort, not only the his- 
torical parts of the Bible, not only the moral, 
not only the prophetical, not only the devo- 
tional — for there is here no dispute — but the 
doctrinal and exper^'mental ? It is no suffi- 
cient proof of the t»" a of the system we are 
opposing, that part., of it agree with the Scrip- 
tures; for it could not be otherwise. It 
would not be a convincing proof of it, even 
if the whole of its detached parts were to be 
found separately in that perfect code. The 
question is, does it take in all that Scrip- 
ture teaches, on the. several subjects ; does 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 197 

it adopt in their obvious and unadulterated 
meaning, all the language and statements of 
the Bible onJ:he fall of man, on justification, 
and on the other points in controversy ? And 
here we boldly and fearlessly appeal to facts. 
Those who preach and wTite in the temper 
and on the scheme which we are opposing, 
do not use naturally and habitually the lan- 
guage of St. Paul and- the other Apostles. 
This language does not suit and fall in with 
their system, does not express what they 
mean ; and, therefore, except when compel- 
led by circumstances, their theological scheme 
avoids the Scriptural phraseology, and is 
formed in a different school. Our objection 
to Bishop Butler's language, is, that it is not 
Scriptural. He substitutes weaker and more 
ambiguous expressions. He lowers every 
thing. This one point goes far to decide the 
question with any candid mind. The sys- 
tem which admits with ease, and reposes 
upon, the very language and sentiments of 
the inspired writers in all their instructions 
and exhortations, must, in all probability, be 
the nearest to the truth. It is thus men 
judge in every similar case. And it is to be 
18 



198 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

remember, that the higher and more spi- 
ritual system of Christianity, takes in and em- 
braces the lower one ; whilst this lower one 
rises not to the other, and thus reaches not 
the extent and end of the Divine Revelation, 
Again, we appeal to the hearts and conscien- 
ces, to the trials and conflicts, to the feelings 
and wants of the most devout and sincere 
Christians, and we ask which view of truth 
comes nearest to their cases, their necessities^ 
their indigence ? Which view of the state 
of man is best descriptive of their own state? 
Which view of the scheme of pardon most 
adequately supplies their importunate need ? 
Which view of the doctrines of the Holy 
Ghost affords the mighty aid which they are 
conscious they require ? Which view of the 
grace of Christianity corresponds most ex- 
actly with their extreme misery ? Which 
view of the spiritual obedience and love of 
the Christian life is most closely aUied to the 
object at which they aim ? But we will not 
press these questions. The confessions of 
the very best and most holy men, are the 
liveliest comment on the language of the 
divine writers. And the misgivings and peni- 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 199 

tential acknowledgments, as death and eter- 
nity approach, of many, who during life, 
espoused the lower interpretation, speak loud- 
ly enough on this subject. 

We rather go on to ^sk this question — 
Which system of divinity produces in the 
largest measure those fruits and effects, which 
are ascribed to the Gospel in the New Tes- 
tament? Now it will be conceded on all 
hands, that ' by their fruits we are to know' 
the true teachers, and distinguish them from 
the false. Does, then, the lowering doctrines 
of modern times on the fall and ruin of man, 
and the redemption and grace of Christ, and 
the kindred topics, awaken the souls of sin- 
ners, reclaim the ungodly, arouse the care- 
less, revive religion where it has decayed, 
and preserve it where it flourishes ? Does 
it not, on the contrary, first leave those who 
preach it cold and inactive, and then fall 
without efficacy on the ears of the hearers ? 
Does it not prove insufficient for converting 
the heart, turning it from the power of sin, 
and raising it to the love and obedience of 
God ? Does it not fail of comforting the 
afflicted conscience, and inspiring a hope of 



200 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

heaven ? Does it not stop short of all the 
mighty ends which primitive Christianity pro- 
duced? And is there not a constant tenden- 
cy in it to deteriorate and sink lower and 
lower, till the grace of the gospel is almost 
excluded, and little remains beyond a tame 
morality and an external form of religion ? 
And does not the decay of spiritual religion 
go on, till, by the mercy of God, a revival of 
the great doctrines of salvation by grace in 
the plain language and spirit of the Scrip- 
tures, lakes place, and recalls man to the 
true standard of faith and practice ? 

The fact plainly is, as these inquiries are 
designed to describe it. On the contrary, 
the simple preaching of ' Christ crucified,' is 
still the ' power of God and the wisdom of 
God.' Wherever the high standard of really 
evangelical truth is raised, and the Saviour 
is preached to a lost world, and the regene- 
rating and sanctifying operations of the Spirit 
are avowed, and the full consolation and joy 
of faith expounded, and the elevated rule of 
Christian morals sustained ; there, under 
whatever incidental defects or disadvantages, 
the effects of conversion, love, and obedience 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 201 

are copiously produced ; man is indeed turn- ^ 
ed from sin unto God, the breast of the rebel 
is subdued and softened, his whole character 
is changed, and the seal of God is impressed 
upon the declaration of his own truth, by the 
displays of his own efficient grace and mercy. 
It strongly confirms the conclusion we thus 
come to, to consider that the Universal Church 
of Christ has held these great truths which 
are now so much opposed. Look to the 
early Fathers of the Church, and you find 
the doctrines of man's total apostacy, and his 
salvation by grace only, to be the life of all 
their instructions. As those mighty truths 
were corrupted by human philosophy, or 
overwhelmed by superstition, the power of 
religion sunk, her glory in the conversion of 
men was lost, and she fell back into a cold 
controversial spirit, which brought on the 
ages of darkness and spiritual tyranny. What, 
we ask, was the doctrine of Cyprian in the 
third century, of Ambrose in the fourth, and 
Augustine in the fifth ? What gave life to 
their exhortations, and influence to their la- 
bours ? Was it not the pure evangelical light, 
which, notwithstanding many subordinate er- 
18^ 



203 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

rors and much superstition, shone forth in 
their laborious discourses and writings ? Even 
to the time of Bernard, the last of the Fa- 
thers, the name and grace of Christ in the 
full efficacy of his mercy, pervaded the the- 
ology, and sanctified the hearts of them. It 
was only as this healing doctrine was utterly 
lost under the accumulation of superstition 
and idolatry, that the melancholy desertion 
and apostacy of the visible Church in the 
West, took place. In the midst of this thick 
darkness, however, it was the same truth of 
grace which preserved, among the Albigenses 
and Waldenses, the life and influence of the 
Gospel. And at the Reformation, what was 
it which Luther, and Melancthon, and Cran- 
mer, and Zuingle, and Calvin, and Beza, and 
Knox taught ? Did they not revive the old 
Scriptural doctrines of original sin, justifica- 
tion by faith, salvation by grace, regeneration 
and communion with God by the Holy Spirit, 
and spiritual obedience, as the fruit of all this 
in the temper and life? Some of these 
truths, indeed, were held in a general and 
loose manner by the church of Rome, but 
they were enervated by distinctions and re- 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 203 

finements, and overwhelmed by superstitious 
usages and rites. The reformers boldly ap- 
pealed from the erroneous opinions of men, 
to the infallible word of God. They set 
forth the ruin of the fall in all its extent, they 
insisted on the preventing grace of the Spirit, 
as necessary to all true repentance, they glo- 
ried only in the cross of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, and in justification by his merits ; they 
called men off from works of external morti- 
fication and unauthorized penance, to the 
good deeds, and virtuous habits, and divine 
principles taught by the sacred WTiters. And 
what was the effect ? In most of the^nations 
of Europe, thousands and thousands were 
really converted to the service and love of 
God. The reformed doctrines spread with 
the rapidity of lightning ; a pure form of 
Christianity was established in many states, 
and the Papacy was shaken to its base. 

Let any one impartially read the Confes- 
sions and Articles of the Reformed churches, 
and those of our own church amongst the 
very first ; and he vvill see that the high stand- 
ard of sentiment and practice which we es- 
pouse, was universally maintained. What is 



204 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

the language of these noble documents ? Does 
it resemble the enfeebled and dubious strain 
of modern theology ; or does it not rather 
take the plain and strong ground of the an- 
cient doctrine of the entire apostacy of man, 
and the efficacious grace of God ? And in 
all the Protestant churches since the Refor- 
mation, mark the progress or decline of real 
piety and holiness, and you will find them 
uniformly to bear a relation to the pure doc- 
trines of grace upheld or denied. Where 
these doctrines have flourished, the presence 
and mercy of God in the conversion of men 
has attested the truth : where a decay has 
taken place, and human morals, or a low 
system of divinity, has usurped the place of 
the unadulterated gospel, every thing has 
fallen in proportion — men have remained 
dead and unmoved in their sins ; the form 
has extinguished the power of godliness; 
cold and proud pretensions to orthodoxy have 
been united with a worldly life ; the clergy 
have deserted the lofty function of being her- 
alds of salvation and examples to their peo- 
ple, and have been lost in secular politics, in 
human attachments to an established creed, 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 205 

and angry controversies with those who point 
out to them ' a more excellent way.' Thus 
things have grown worse and worse, till God 
has granted a revival, by the secret guidance 
of his Spirit. Then the old and forgotten 
tenets of human guilt and impotency, and 
divine mercy and power, have been raised 
up again as from the grave, the old standard 
of truth again erected ; public opinion has 
been gradually changed ; the former state of 
decline admitted and deplored ; and the 
wonted efficacy of Christian doctrine seen 
once more, in its proper fruits of conversion, 
holiness, and love. 

But we are indulging ourselves in reflec- 
tions which carry us too far from our imme- 
diate design. The Analogy is a Treatise of 
Evidences, and could only be expected to 
allude generally to these momentous topics. 
We would not assume the truth of the even- 
gelical system of which we speak. We in- 
vite only to inquiry ; we appeal boldly to 
every kind of testimony which such a case 
admits ; and we leave the result with confi- 
dence to the judgment of every unbiassed 
and enlightened theological student. One 



206 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

reason of our venturing to dwell on these 
topics is the well-fixed persuasion, that our 
writers on Evidences have grievously mista- 
ken their own duty as advocates of Chris- 
tianity, as well as the interests of truth and 
religion generally, in not presenting the fair 
and adequate account of the doctrines and 
morals of the Gospel. We do not mean that 
they should involve themselves in contro- 
versy, nor even enter on the details of Chris- 
tian doctrines and morals. Let them keep 
to their own province, the defence and estab- 
lishment of Christianity generally ; but let 
the references to the contents and tenor of 
that religion be, so far as they go, just and 
complete. Let the little they do say, be ac- 
curate. Let what is given to their readers 
convey an idea of what the spirit and design 
of the whole system is. Let the parts touch- 
ed on, connect naturally with all the rest 
which are not specifically treated. This con- 
duct becomes the magnitude and importance 
of the subject. It prepares the reader of 
evidences to submit to the yoke of Christ. 
It exhibits religion attractive, efficacious, en- 
tire. It meets the feelings and wants of the 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 207 

sincere and humble inquirer. It shuts out a 
thousand misapprehensions and errors. It 
insures the blessing of God in a larger mea- 
sure, upon the triumphant evidences of our 
faith. It is the most simple, upright, straight 
forward course.^ 

Still we are far, very far from undervalu- 
ing the labours of the Apologists and De- 
fenders of Christianity. They have perform- 
ed excellent service. Their acuteness and 
skill, their penetrating observation, their inde- 
fatigable researches, the force of their reason- 
ings, and the depth of their knowledge, have 
deserved highly of the sacred cause. The 
External Evidences have naturally been most 
adequately unfolded, because the interior 
virtues and properties of the Christian scheme 
came less within their scope. But we ad- 
here, notwithstanding, to our conviction, that 
all the summaries of the revealed doctrines, 
which even the argument from external evi- 



* We cannot here withhold our tribute of admira- 
tion from the work of Mr. Sumner on the * Evidence 
of Christianity, as derived from its reception, and from 
the nature of its doctrine.' This masterly treatise 
forms an era in the history of writings in defence of 
our faith. 



208 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

dences require, should be a part and parcel, 
as it were, of the entire possession, should 
resemble the apostolic examples, and be ex- 
pressed as nearly as possible in the apostolic 
language. We do not stop to say how much 
more this should be the case in Treatises on 
the Internal Evidences. We rather go on 
to observe, that in the case immediately be- 
fore us, the argument from Analogy, a simi- 
lar.*fidelity to the full demands of the Chris- 
tian scheme, would have had the very best 
effect. That we do not depreciate the tal- 
ents and labours of Bishop Butler, must have 
been obvious to every reader of these pages. 
We have even expressed the hope, the ra- 
tional hope, springing from a judgment of 
charity, that in his own mind he followed the 
true doctrine, and that he was far from in- 
tending to produce those consequences to 
which his language may lead. We have 
also fully admitted his correct and powerful 
defence of the scheme of Christianity to a 
certain extent. It is this very thing which 
makes us the more regret, that he had not 
carried his views on, and given a more full 
and accurate idea, so far as his plan^^of argu- 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 209 

ment allowed, of all the efficacy and consola- 
tion of the gospel. His work is cold. He 
seems rather like a man forced to be a Chris- 
tian, than one rejoicing in its blessings. It is 
impossible to calculate the additional good 
which the Analogy would have effected, if its 
unnumbered readers had been instructed 
more adequately by it in the spiritual death 
and ruin of man in all his powers by the fall, 
in the inestimable constitution of special grace 
established by the gospel, in the gratuitous 
justification of the sincere believer in the 
sacrifice of Christ, in the divine nature and 
properties of true faith, in the mighty opera- 
tions of the Holy Ghost in illuminating and 
sanctifying man, and in the consolation and 
universal obedience which are the fruits of 
faith. Probably there is no student in di- 
vinity, during the last half century or more, 
who has not read, and read with admiration 
and profit, this astonishing work. How many 
of these have been confirmed in a defective 
theology, strengthened in prejudices against 
truth, and persuaded to adopt a low system 
of doctrine in the instruction of others, from 
the incidental language, and hazardous ex- 
19 



210 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

pressions which occur in it ! But so it is. 
There are in human life few things complete. 
What we meet with in one writer, we miss 
in another. The union of rare and exquisite 
talent with the highest tone of sacred feeling 
and doctrine, was perhaps rarely ever witnes- 
sed as it was in Pascal. And the good 
which his masterly work, though posthumous, 
and the writing of a Roman Catholic, has 
produced, has been correspondent both in ex- 
tent and in quality. The unexampled effects 
of his ' Thoughts on Religion,' attest the soli- 
dity of the main points to which we are now ad- 
verting. Pascal surpasses all other writers on 
Evidences, because he conjoins the most 
lively and acute genius, and the finest powers 
of reasoning, with the full admission of the 
great fundamental tenets of the Christianity 
which he defends. The single doctrine of 
the entire corruption of man by the fall, sheds 
a light on all his arguments, and meets the 
state and feelings of every pious reader, whilst 
it tends to instruct those who are as yet un- 
acquainted with this most important truth. It 
is thus that Pascal's great work, though not 
free from many of the errors of his churcli, 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 211 

remains unrivalled in its class. And the work 
of Bishop Butler would have been little infe- 
rior to it, if it had united, with its profound 
and just views of the order of God in his 
natural government, and the correspondence 
of his moral and religious order in revelation, 
the full view of human depravity and of di- 
vine grace, which that revelation opened be- 
fore him. It is impossible not to see with 
what ease a writer who has proceeded so far, 
and conducted us so securely to a certain 
point, would have gone on in the course he 
was pursuing, till he had embraced the vast 
compass of experimental and practical reli- 
gion, and had thus left behind him a monu- 
ment, not only of triumph over objections 
against the general scheme of Christianity, 
but of victory over those prejudices, and that 
tame acquiescence which too often obscure 
the real doctrine of our recovery, as we have 
ventured to delineate it. 

8. For this is the last topic on which we 
shall presume to offer any remarks. We 
observe, therefore, that the very same argu- 
ments from the analogy of nature which silence 
the objections raised against Christianity, as 



212 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

expounded by our author in a very mitigated 
sense, would have served to meet the objections 
raised against it, in its full Scriptural extent. 
I. For instance, the doctrine of the fall 
of our nature might have been defended in 
its genuine form, quite as triumphantly as it 
now is. The following is the conclusion of 
Butler's argument : — ' Whoever considers all 
these, and some other obvious things, v^ill 
think he has little reason to object against the 
Scripture account, that mankind is in a state 
of degradation ; against this being the fact, 
how difficult soever he may think it to ac- 
count for, or even to form a distinct concep- 
tion of the occasion and circumstances of it. 
But that the crime of our first parents was 
the occasion of our being placed in a more 
'disadvantageous condition, is a thing through- 
out, and particularly analogous to what we 
see in the daily course of natural Providence.' 
Part II. c. V. sec. 5. Surely, if the expres- 
sions used by the inspired writers were sub- 
stituted for the defective ones of this passage, 
the argument would hold equally good. Nay, 
it would have more force, from more exactly 
corresponding with the facts of the case. 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 213 

For men, alas ! are not merely in ' a state of 
degradation' but of alienation from the life of 
God, through the ignorance that is in them, 
because of the blindness of their hearts ;' man- 
kind were not only ' placed in a more disadvan- 
tageous condition by the crime of our first pa- 
rents,' but * by one man sin entered into the 
world, and death by sin ; and so death pass- 
ed upon all men, for that all have sinned ;' 
as the inspired apostle declares. 

II. Again, the argument of our author, 
from our confessed ignorance of what a reve- 
lation might be expected to contain, and of 
what particular offices and duties might be 
assigned to a Divine Mediator, is just as valid 
when applied to the true view of the media- 
torial grace of Christ, as we conceive it to be 
revealed in Scripture (always supposing we 
are right in that view) as to the limited view 
to which he actually applies it. The hope 
which the order of Providence suggests of 
the moral consequences of sin being in some 
way remedied under God's government, re- 
mains as it does. The inefficacy of mere 
repentance and reformation, as apparent from 
the course of natural things, remains as it 
19^ 



214 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

does. The intervention of Christ as the 
great Mediator, by his one vicarious propitia- 
tion and atonement, remains as it does. If, 
then, the efFects of this mighty sacrifice are 
not merely the ' procuring our repentance to 
be accepted, and the putting us in a capacity 
of salvation,' but the actual gift of pardon, 
justification, and a title to eternal life, by 
faith only — the inference is as firm, and the 
analogy as clear, as in the present case. The 
reasoning is even more close, if the facts, as 
we contend they do- — that is, the real state 
of man, the positive benefits received by the 
sincere believer, and the decisive testimony 
of Scripture on the subject — bear us out. 

III. Nor can we discern any gap in the 
argument, concerning faith being the instru- 
ment of receiving Jesus Christ as the great- 
est gift of God — if faith be interpreted in 
that higher and transcendent sense in which 
we have put it. The reasoning stands just 
as it does. Only at present it applies to a 
general indiscriminate belief in the truths of 
revelation ; and, in the case as we would 
propose it, it would embrace a particular, 
personal, holy, affectionate obedience of the 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 215 

heart to the testimony of God to his Son, 
and to life in Him. If objections are in- 
valid or frivolous against the first, much 
more must they be so against the second. 

IV. In like manner, the admirable reason- 
ing of our author, from the clear and particu- 
lar analogy of nature, that a moral govern- 
ment is going on in the world, and will be 
completed in a future life — a government in 
which every one shall be punished or reward- 
ed according to his works — loses no part of 
its force, if the grace of God, and the fruits 
of faith flowing from it, are included in the 
notion of the deeds of the righteous to which 
the reward of endless life shall be assigned. 
All depends on the primary question. What 
is the real doctrine of Scripture on the point? 
Assuming this, which we are obliged to do 
for the sake of argument, we must say, we 
can see no different, or stronger objections 
against a moral and righteous government 
under the Christian dispensation being now 
carrying on, if the true view of the character, 
and works, and piety, and humility, and other 
attendant virtues of the believer in Christ be 
taken into the account of his general good 



216 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

deeds, than if the historical faith, and feeble 
penitence, and defective motives, and partial 
morality of the external Christian be mainly- 
regarded. On the contrary, the argument 
gains incomparably in strength and exactness, 
if the Scriptural hypothesis be adhered to. 

V. Again, the full doctrine of the opera- 
tions of the Holy Ghost, in the sense we have 
given to it, is just as reconcilable with all we 
see in the order of nature and just as free 
from any vahd objections, as that aid and 
assistance to good men is, to which our au- 
thor chiefly restricts it. It is no more con- 
trary to any conceptions or expectations we 
might have formed of Christianity, to find in 
it a provision for restoring our corrupted na- 
ture by an effective renewal, than to aid it 
only by less supplies of light, and strength, 
and consolation. The mystery of the Spirit's 
operations is the same in both cases — the 
danger of enthusiastic pretensions the same — 
the manner of recovering man by the revela- 
tion of a Divine Sanctifier, the same — the 
obligations we owe to the Holy Spirit, in the 
relation he stands in to us, the same. We 
mean the same in kind — open to no other 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 217 

objections ; proceeding on the same sort of 
scheme. Indeed Butler actually uses, at 
times, as we have had occasion to state, the 
strongest language that could be required, 
and quotes once the expression of our Sa- 
viour, ' Except a man be born of the Spirit, 
he cannot see the kingdom of heaven.' He 
needed only to have pursued out these ad- 
missions, and incorporated them into his di- 
gest of the Christian code, in order to have 
discharged the entire measure of his duty of 
a theological instructer. 

VI. The observations also, excellently 
acute as they are, which Butler makes on 
the system of means working to various high 
ends, and on the moral discipline and proba- 
tion which the state of things in this world 
constitutes to the Christian, would retain all 
their fitness, and would conclude as strongly, 
if the spiritual nature of real obedience and 
love to God, and of the peace and consola- 
tion inspired, as we conceive, by the Gospel, 
had been in his view, as they do now. The 
force of habits, the progress men make from 
one degree of character, and one capacity of 
excellence to another — the discipline arising 



218 WILSON^S ANALOGY. 

from the wickedness of the world, and the 
trials to which piety and virtue are exposed 
— the attainment of states of mind, and mea- 
sures of knowledge and goodness by these 
means, which could scarcely have been con- 
ceived of in the first stages of the progress 
— the preparation for future happiness and 
security thus gradually made — the influence 
of our present trials on our future condition, 
in a way of natural consequence — these, and 
many other of our author's finest remarks 
will stand, whichever system of morals and 
consolation we adopt. They apply, however, 
with double propriety, if we retain the higher 
standard of love, obedience, self-denial, watch- 
fulness, and peace. Their force is thus aug- 
mented. The occasions for them are more 
striking ; whilst the difficulties remain for 
substance the same. 

VII. The only plausible objection which 
we can suppose to be offered to the view of 
the Christian scheme, as a scheme of grace 
is, that it presents the Almighty as unequal 
in the distribution of his gifts. For, undoubt- 
edly, if the real corruption and disorder of 
mankind by the fall be what we have stated— 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. . 219 

if the remaining powers of natural religion be 
so feeble and inefficient — if the operations of 
the Holy Ghost be so mighty and distinguish- 
ing — if the blessings flowing from the media- 
tion and sacrifice of Christ be so exuberant 
— if, finally, the standard of Christian love 
and holiness be so high — then it follows that 
man does not, in fact, begin with God in the 
application and reception of the blessings of 
Christ, but God begins with man ; then it 
follows, that salvation is wholly of grace, and 
not of human efibrt and choice in any degree : 
and thus we arrive at the necessary confes- 
sion, that there is, in the Gospel, a special 
gift and collation of effectual grace, previous 
to any saving effects being derived from the 
death of Christ. And this confession we 
scruple not to make. There is such a thing 
as the special and effectual grace of God. 
We do ascribe to Almighty God all the w^ill 
and the power which we have to do any 
thing that is good. We do acknowledge, 
that not only the means of salvation in the 
sacrifice of Christ, are of God ; that not only 
the offers of salvation in the doctrine of the 
Gospel are of God ; but that also the grace 



220 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

to accept these offers — -the grace which illu- 
minates, and persuades, and converts, and 
sanctifies, and consoles — is of God. A niys- 
tery this, which we attempt not to fathom ; 
but the practical use of which we may clear- 
ly discern. For, as this doctrine is never so 
stated as to lessen the responsibility of man, 
supersede the use of means, weaken the duty 
of every one who hears the gospel, to repent 
and obey it ; or excuse, in the slightest mea- 
sure, the guilt of impenitence and disobedi- 
ence ; so it manifestly tends to deep humility 
of mind under a sense of our helplessness 
and misery ; to entire renunciation of our 
own presumptuous and unaided efforts, and 
to simple dependence on the influences of 
grace, to enable us to comply with the calls 
of the Gospel as addressed to us. That is, 
it puts us in the attitude of supphants. It 
makes our feelings correspond with our real 
situation. It guards us against false refuges, 
and directs us to the true one. And it 
teaches us to ascribe the glory of all we do, 
where alone it is becoming, to the gracious 
will and mercy of our compassionate God 
and Father, 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 221 

And surely the objection raised against 
this inequality of the Divine gifts, may be 
moderated at least, and silenced, by the very 
same arguments which our author so solidly 
employs on similar subjects. We obviously 
see, in the order of natural Providence, this 
inequality ; that is, some men have advanta- 
ges, opportunities, instructions, means of at- 
taining benefits,, endowments of mind and 
body, facilities in their moral trial and proba- 
tion, which others have not. The diversity 
of cases is infinite. The general laws by 
which they are produced, are to us unknown. 
The speculative difficulties of comprehend- 
ing the scheme of things in which they are 
found, are insuperable. Still things are as 
they are ; and all thoughts of harshness and 
severity are excluded by recollecting, that 
every one shall be judged at last by an infi- 
nitely gracious Creator, who will not require 
of any, more than what was committed to his 
trust. ' Shall not the Judge of all the earth 
do right,' is the question applicable to the 
more profound mystery involved in the Scrip- 
tural account of our salvation, as well as to 
the ordinary irregularities of the gifts ofPro- 
20 



222 WILSON'S ANALOGY 

vidence, as defended by our author. We 
cannot reasonably expect the same measure 
of information concerning God's proceedings, 
as concerning our own duty. The reasons 
of the collation of grace are with God ; the 
duty of seeking that grace, on the assured 
promise that we shall obtain it, is with us. 
The inequalities in the Divine gifts is a se- 
cret of the Almighty ; the improvement and 
right use of the abundant measure of these 
gifts which we severally possess, is the obvi- 
ous province of man. If the statement of 
the Christian scheme, which we are defend- 
ing, be scriptural, the argument from analogy 
moderates and silences all objections which 
are made against it, to every fair and con- 
siderate mind. We say moderates and si- 
lences them ; for it does not undertake to 
answer them. The case, for any thing we 
know, admits not of a satisfactory explana- 
tion to finite creatures like us, at least in the 
very small part of it as yet revealed. 

VIII. Nay, further, if the profound and 
incomprehensible subject of the Divine pre- 
science and predestination should be con- 
sidered as springing from the topic which we 



WILSOTs^'S ANALOGY. 223 

have just been noticing, as it undoubtedly 
does in one form or other, and as the articles 
of the Reformed Churches explicitly make 
it to do ; the very same arguments which 
Butler employs to guard against the fatal 
consequences deduced from the doctrine of 
philosophical necessity, are applicable to any 
dangerous consequences which might be 
drawn from it. The Scriptural doctrine of 
predestination (without determining, too mi- 
nutely, what that doctrine is, for which this 
is not the place) no more excludes or weak- 
ens deliberation on our part, choice, the use 
of means, the acting from certain principles 
to certain ends, than the opinion of necessity 
does. If the argument of analogy, from the 
facts of God's natural providence and govern- 
ment, silences the difficulties or abuses, call 
them which you please, which spring from 
the scheme of necessity ; much more does it 
silence the difficulties which are sometimes 
linked on the doctrine of predestination — a 
doctrine, on all interpretations of it, essen- 
tially milder and more intelligible than neces- 
sity, and resting on totally different principles. 
If, for example, a child who should be edu- 



224 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

cated by a Necessarian to imagine that he 
was not a subject of praise or blame, because 
he could not act otherwise than he did, is 
refuted by matter of fact, by the inconvenien- 
ces he brings on himself and occasions oth- 
ers ; and is thus taught by experience, that 
his applying this scheme of necessity to prac- 
tice and common life, is reasoning inconclu- 
sively from his principles, even supposing 
them to be true ; how much more ought the 
man who should deduce the like pernicious 
inferences from the doctrine of predestina- 
tion, to consider himself as refuted by matter 
of fact, and be taught that he reasoned in- 
conclusively in applying his principles to com- 
mon life ? For the Divine predestination, as 
revealed in the Scriptures, is not a blind fate, 
or necessity ; but the prescience and fore- 
ordination of events, according to the infinite 
wisdom, goodness, mercy, and power of the 
Sovereign Lord and Father of all. The 
truth is, that on either scheme the application 
of the rule of the divine will, to our duties in 
life, is false, dangerous, and contrary to the 
whole analogy of God's government over us, 
as reasonable and accountable beings. Oa 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 225 

either scheme, or notwithstanding either 
scheme, it remains, as our author well ob- 
serves, a fixed and fundamental truth, that 
* God will finally, and upon the whole, in his 
eternal government, render his creatures hap- 
py or miserable, by some means or other, as 
they behave well or ill.' 

IX. The practical difficulties which still 
remain, and which must remain, on these and 
similar points, are, lastly, capable of being 
entirely relieved or silenced, by carrying on 
the admirable arguments of the bishop on the 
ignorance of man, and the incomprehensi- 
bility of the vast scheme of the divine govern- 
ment to him, in his present state. Christianity 
is obviously a plan only partially, very partially 
revealed. We see but a small part of God's 
ways in his natural providence, and we see 
still less of them in his supernatural and stu- 
pendous revelation of grace. The very things 
which we think irregularities and defects, 
may, for ought we know, be instances of sur- 
prising goodness and wisdom. The relations 
of each circumstance which now puzzles us, 
may stretch beyond us infinitely, and be con- 
nected with events, past, present and future, 
20^ 



226 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

in an endless series. The difficulties which 
press upon religion, arise chiefly from our 
presumption in wishing to understand and 
reconcile God's acts and will ; not from our 
inability to discern the pathof our own duty. 
Our obligations are clearly set before us ; it 
is the divine government and purposes which 
are not clear to us. And surely the deplo- 
rable and pitiable ignorance in whicb we find 
ourselves, as to the order of things in the 
natural world, may reconcile us to the con- 
sequences of the same ignorance, as to the 
order of things in religion. It is one chief 
act of faith, thus to bow before the majesty 
of God; and it is one distinct test of humility, 
to be willing so to do. They offend equally 
against both these Christian graces, who, 
on the one hand, deny or explain away the 
divine prescience and fore-ordination, under 
the notion of preserving man's free-agency 
and responsibility; or who, on the other, 
weaken or undermine man's reasonable and 
accountable nature, on the plea of magnify- 
ing the grace of God. They offend equally 
against faith and humility, who either wholly 
conceal the mysteries of religion, with the 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 227 

view of preventing the abuse of them, or who 
obtrude and overstate them, on the pretence 
of discharging the calls of gratitude, and aba- 
ting the confidence of man. The depth of 
human ignorance should be ever impressed 
on our minds, when we advance a step, 
either in maintaining or impugning any doc- 
trines which relate peculiarly to the ever- 
blessed God. The rule of Scripture — its 
terms, its spirit ; the proportion in which dif- 
ferent truths are stated, the bearings and 
relations of them to each other ; the conse- 
quences deduced from them ; the manner in 
which they represent man ; and the charac- 
ter and attributes which they ascribe to al- 
mighty God, should all be scrupulously ad- 
hered to. Our ignorance enjoins this implicit 
submission. And in this temper the scheme 
of Christianity, as we conceive of it, is open 
to no more difficulties than the scheme of it, 
as stated by Bishop Butler. The argument 
from analogy covers either. And the only 
question that fairly remains, is, which ap- 
proaches the nearest to the Holy Scriptures.^ 
And on this question we cannot think any 
doubt would long harass a candid mind, if 
20^* 



228 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

prejudice and prepossession were laid aside 
and the study of the hunian heart, and prayer 
for divine ilkunination, were connected with 
the examination of the Sacred Volume. 

But it is time for us to draw to a close this 
too much extended Essay. We are far from 
flattering ourselves that we shall succeed in 
persuading our readers, generally of the truth 
of all we have advanced. In the first divi- 
sion of the Essay, indeed, we can anticipate 
but one opinion. The admiration of the 
genius of Butler is a national sentiment ; and 
if we have at all succeeded in expressing, in 
a shorter compass, his main arguments, we 
shall not be thought to have written unneces- 
sarily, at least for the young. On the connex- 
ion, also, of the argument from analogy with 
the other branches of the Christian evidence, 
we hope we have advanced nothing which 
will be thought open to controversy. It is in 
the latter part of the Essay where we ex- 
press our difference of opinion from our great 
author, on the scheme and bearing of Chris- 
tianity, that we must expect opponents. The 
case cannot be otherwise. Indeed, fair and 
manly discussion in the temper which Chris- 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 229 

tianlty inspires, is far from being unfriendly 
to the interests of truth. A calm and un- 
meaning acquiescence is much more so. Tor- 
por precedes death. We are exhorted to 
' contend earnestly for the faith once deliver- 
ed to the saints;' and this exhortation im- 
plies material differences of judgment amongst 
professed Christians. Let me only earnestly 
recommend that charity on questions really 
doubtful, and that zeal and fervour on points 
of fundamental import, which the whole ten- 
dency of the work, which we have been en- 
deavouring to illustrate, strongly enforces. 
We are placed in this world in a mysterious 
and progressive state of things. Darkness 
and ignorance hang over much of our path. 
Charity is therefore our peculiar duty in such 
circumstances. Even the truths most directly 
practical and fundamental, touch on others 
which are less clearly revealed. To attain 
uniformity of opinion on all subordinate points, 
is a hopeless pursuit. The education of differ- 
ent men, their prejudices, their various talents 
and advantages — the party-spirit, the unfa- 
vourable habits, and the defective measures 
of religious attainments which are found 



230 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

amongst them — the mere ambiguity of lan- 
guage will constantly occasion a diversity, a 
great diversity of judgments. The only heal- 
ing measures in the midst of these disorders,, 
is the spirit of love — love which rejoices ta 
hope the best of others, which interprets favour- 
ably doubtful matters, which seeks the real 
welfare and happiness of all — love which 
bears and forbears, which reconciles and sof- 
tens, which unites and binds together, which 
consoles and blesses the hearts where it 
reigns. It is by this divine principle that we 
shall most dispose persons of various senti- 
ments to act in concert with us. It is this 
which neutralizes and disarms opposition. It 
is this which tends both to lessen the amount 
of our differences, and to take away almost 
all the evil of those which remain. Persons 
who cannot altogether think alike, may join 
in mutual love and good-will — may act as 
one in points out of controversy — may grant 
cheerfully the freedom of judgment which 
they themselves require — may aim at nar- 
rowing, instead of extending and widening 
the grounds of separation ; and may believe 
others to be guided by a similar conviction 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 231 

with themselves. It is surprising how rapidly 
controversies would die away, if this course 
were pursued ! The questions on which real 
Christians substantially agree, are infinitely 
more important to them, and more clear in 
themselves, than those on which they differ. 
Let us then reserve our zeal and fervour for 
these uncontested matters. They demand 
all our concern — all our time — all our care. 
It is the magnifying of other points, beyond 
all reason, and beyond Scripture, which has 
occasioned the divisions in the church. Let 
it be one effect of the study of Bishop But- 
ler, to moderate our opinion of our own 
knowledge and attainments, and to direct our 
efforts and zeal into their only safe channel. 
Humility is the proper effect of reading such 
an author. We shall thus present the fairer 
face of Christianity to such as doubt of its 
truth. The eloquence of a consistent, be- 
nevolent temper and life is never witbout its 
effect. If, indeed, Christianity is robbed of 
its characteristic glories, and its doctrines 
and morals are gradually reduced to the 
standard of a corrupt world, there is nothing 
left to contend about. No charity can hope 



232 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

well of such a religion. But when the pecu- 
liar truths of revelation are sincerely retained, 
and the main doctrines and duties flowing 
from the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ 
and the influences of his Spirit, are insisted 
on, then it is that the correspondent temper 
and behaviour are naturally required, and 
become so incomparably important. The 
most formidable objection against religion, 
practically speaking, is the defective conduct 
of those who profess it. The light of a holy 
example shines around. The infidel must 
be at times struck with the contrast between 
the obvious benevolence and friendliness, the 
self-denial and activity of the true Christian, 
and the selfishness, pride, and indolence of 
a worldly person. The amiableness and use- 
fulness of the one, is in deep contrast with 
the repulsive and self-indulgent tone of the 
other. The effect of this contrast is una- 
voidable. The infidel and sceptic know the 
human passions too well, not to estimate in 
some measure what must be the force of the 
principles which can overcome them. In 
this peaceful victory of holiness and truth let 
us persevere. The acknowledged excellencn 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 233 

of our conduct will add incomparably to the 
evidences which we gather from Butler, or 
other writers, when we are called on to state 
them in argument. The spirit of love will 
dispose an adversary to listen to a calm de- 
fence of our faith. All arrogance — all airs 
of superiority — all harshness of manner — 
all over-statements will be banished from our 
friendly and affectionate efforts, and the path 
of truth be smoothed and rendered inviting. 
Indeed all the stupendous doctrines of Chris- 
tianity are designed to form us to that tem- 
per of gratitude to God, and of benevolence 
to man, from which the conduct we are re- 
commending immediately flows. And it is 
one main recommendation of those doctrines, 
in their simple and native vigour, as we have 
endeavoured to state them, that, they, and 
they only, produce the uniform Christian 
temper. Without this seal and confirmation 
of the truth, all our reasonings, however con- 
clusive, will fail of convincing. With it, the 
weakest and most defective statement of the 
grounds of our faith, will often succeed. Re- 
ligion is not so much a matter of intellectual 
effort, as of the obedience of the heart and 



234 WILSON'S ANALOGY. 

affections. Christianity, in all its discoveries, 
and duties, and promises, is so adapted to the 
state and wants of man, that it can only be 
rejected when there is an inward aversion to 
goodness. The form of argument which that 
aversion may assume, has been sufficiently 
refuted a thousand limes. The last resources 
of it are cut off by the process of analogical 
reasoning so admirably adopted by Butler. 
Let this alienation of mind be overcome, and 
man falls prostrate in adoration at the foot of 
the cross. The doctrines of the Gospel suit 
and meet his feelings and necessities. The 
evidences of it are admitted to have their true 
force. The fruits of holiness and consolation 
soon begin to appear ; and these fruits in the 
convert to the faith, being in harmony with 
the same effects in the temper and spirit of 
his instructer, attest the identity of religion, 
and increase in both of them the happy as- 
surance that they have found the supreme 
good of man — the real spring of truth and 
felicity— the undoubted revelation of the di- 
vine will — the exuberant source of pardon, 
peace, and holiness — the most amazing dis- 
covery of the mercy and grace of God — the 



WILSON'S ANALOGY. 235 

correspondent parts of that vast scheme which 
is impressed with the same features in the 
works of nature and of grace, and which are 
the pledge and guide to the eternal rest and 
joy of heaven. 



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Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: August 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

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